<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Last Rest by WhisperDan</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26601265">Last Rest</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhisperDan/pseuds/WhisperDan'>WhisperDan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teen Wolf (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Anal Fingering, Angst, Dead Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), F/M, Fox Stiles Stilinski, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Masturbation, Nemeton, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, The Hale Family, Threesome - M/M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:47:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>83,683</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26601265</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhisperDan/pseuds/WhisperDan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There stood three pools of water.</p><p>They were still as mirrors and the shiny black of lacquered bowls. In each, Stiles saw a different image, three divergent paths from a single moment in time. He should look away, he thought, not because this was a dream or because he thought these visions were unreal. But because they were real. These three pools existed somewhere in the Wood, three lenses through which the forest watched the unraveling of all things.  </p><p>In the first reflecting pool he saw a dead wolf mounted on a pike surrounded by the kindling of a massive pyre still unlit.  </p><p>In the second, blood ran in torrents along a maze of cobble stones and mortar.  </p><p>And in the third, a house on a hill was a gash of red flame against the night sky. Common among these visions was a man Stiles did not know with eyes like coal and a mouth of gnarled, sharp teeth, the blood in his veins running like quicksilver under pale, papery skin. He was silver death; lye in a decanter of wine, silent and nameless and violent.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Isaac Lahey/Original Female Character(s), Peter Hale/Original Male Character(s), Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Vernon Boyd/Erica Reyes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>92</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Icky Thump</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>You can find a Last Rest soundtrack on <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5pdoxn8AKdV0mMkCIPTRBq?si=ZlYAy-ZjR1Or_ZgSXt27Ng">Spotify</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If you went over the Wall, they left you there to rot. Sometimes, if someone was caught trying to climb over, they were hung on the other side overnight by their ankles. When they were pulled back up, if they were alive, they were indentured to the Mayor. Most of the time when the rope was hauled over, it was frayed and bloodstained and not even a corpse was left dangling from it.  </p><p>People from the coast, the farthest a person could live from the Wall without making the sea voyage to the Silent Country, were caught most often. They’d heard the lore and come to the edge of the world to it see for themselves. And when they left, occasionally it was in anger, but never in disappointment. Staring up at the Wall was a bit like seeing your house no longer as a place you chose to be but as a place you could never freely leave. </p><p>A traveler, drooping and drunk in the Night’s Squall, once declared it was all a hoax the town had orchestrated in order to sell trinkets and fill beds at the inn. Stiles wagered her four pennies she couldn’t find the end if she hiked the sliver of land running the Wall’s course and she’d taken his bet. She returned and spit on him, insisting that there must have been an end, he had just known it was farther than any reasonable person would walk. And anyway, if it was so this and so that, cursed, wicked, why wasn’t this and every Wall Town abandoned?  </p><p>John said it was because land was cheap.  </p><p>His grandmother said it was because the air poisoned your brain as soon you breathed it.   </p><p>The school teacher said it was because they were descendant from the labor corp that had built the Wall and chosen not to make the treacherous climb back through the Smokies. </p><p>The Wall’s draw made for difficult winter holy days with so many tourists milling in the square and sometimes purposefully meddling with the rituals.  Eventually the town gates were closed to outsiders from last reaping to first seeding. Ma’s and Pa’s sitting on porches with a lip full of chew said sometimes when the thaw set in, the Wallmen would still occasionally find corpses in the melt. No one could move them until late spring they were so heavy with frost.</p><p>In October, on the last day of the year, Stiles helped his father douse the old fires and cleanse the house for winter. It was his favorite day of the year now that he was a young man. The tavern was closed, the harvests brought in, no more sticky, spilled ale to scrub or beds to turn over or wheat to thresh. When they cleaned their cabin for the New Year, he could be relieved by their work, could rest in a chair and breathe in the scent of freshly bundled pine boughs on the mantle. </p><p>Nothing existed in the world beyond their door.  </p><p>And when the cleaning was done, he and his father would bundle up in thick scarves and wool long coats and go to the town square for a feast and lighting of the First Flame of the New Year. The poorest families were allowed to eat first even if it was not mandated in the Book; Reverend Whittemore insisted charity was more nourishing than bread to those that were able to afford it. Stiles and his father were not first in line and they were not last either.  Since his mother’s death, his father had regained a bit of standing regardless of his thoughts on the matter. It worked against them during the celebration by pushing back their turn to pile their plates.  </p><p>At the feast’s end they would take coals from the bonfire and bring them home to relight the hearths and talk about old times and drink coffee from the speckled tin cups the first Stilinski had brought with him over the mountains.  </p><p> </p><p>All able people worked in shifts as the time of Offering approached. They stood, groggy and shivering in the early morning air, the sky still black, to receive their tasks from Headman Bette Stuart. She gave the option to volunteer for a job before reading off the assignment and when his father was a boy, volunteers filled every task. Many things had changed since the death of the old Mayor and instillation of Abel Hubbard. Hands no longer rose when a difficult chore was announced. There was quite a bit Stiles had reason to despise about the old ways, but this was one tradition had been abandoned by privilege, silent and creeping, not thoughtful revision. When monsters stayed on their side of the valley, as they had for nearly ten years, entitlement filled in their absence.  </p><p>He gutted a pig with the butcher’s son after sunrise.  Blood spattered his apron and drenched his hands as he yanked out the organs. The heart would be mounted on the cornucopia, and the eyeballs and tongue and liver, the rest would be laid across the platter, oiled and salted. There would be other things too, cheeses and caskets of beer, pine, holly and cloth garlands. </p><p>No one ever volunteered to butcher the pigs with Daniel; they’d all cringed when the Headman called their names. Stiles started offering himself to the task when he was old enough for the silence to grate on his ears. The blood had been more than he knew could be in a living thing and for five years of butchering, he’d dash behind the woodshed to vomit when Mr. Māhealani went to go re-pack his pipe. He took the Wall’s lesson while the other children helped Elsie bake bread and nut cakes; she would have thrown anything he touched to her dogs anyhow.  </p><p> “Slow down,” barked Danny, but his face was kind when he took a swig from his water skin, “Father’ll put me out if he sees how fast you can clean a pig.” </p><p>Stiles felt around the cavity. In the late autumn air, his skin and the pig’s was bluish and veined and dry. But not Danny’s, his mother rendered balms from leftover fat. He was young and dashing, even spattered in swines' blood, maybe more so because of it.</p><p>“You going to the church after?” Danny asked.  </p><p>Stiles nodded. </p><p>This Offering would bring the three-year reign of the Fox to Last Rest, ending the previous cycle of the Doe. The changing of the reigns this year would be somber, and it showed on passing faces already. In the twelve-year cycle, the years of the Fox were the unluckiest. Harvests were never as vibrant as they were in the years of the Rabbit or Doe and the hunt was fouler than in the years of the Wolf. The mood of the village was dour as the night of hauling the cornucopia over the Wall drew nearer.  </p><p>Some shut themselves up in their homes rather than attend service in the chapel during the Fox Cycle and the Reverend did not punish them for it; he even refused to baptize children born under the Fox’s sign until they reached an age of four or five to be certain they were not changeling kits. Mauve Moran was killed by her infant just after Whittemore was ordained, said the whispers, his first act as reverend was to have the remains of mother and child incinerated in the old foundry kilns.  </p><p>“Mother insists,” Danny sighed, cleaving hooves, “’We’re in peril’ she says.” Danny’s mother had birthed six sons all in one time of the Rabbit or the next. She was a favorite of the Reverend and the new sheriff and all those people that mattered in Last Rest, a truly shining example of the Rabbit’s fertility and quickness.  </p><p>“Think’n on marrying just to be the man of my own house,” Danny said, “Mother’ll be at it all the next three years. Every dinner, I swear it, will be ‘O Lord, make safe our burrow, protect our young’ and so on until I drown myself in God-damn Shack’s Pond. <em> Fuck my ass, speak of the Devil and </em> <em> H </em> <em> e shall appear </em>, Mother!” he chirruped the last like a good, God-fearing boy.   </p><p>She came between the two tables, skirts lifted in her hands to keep the hem from dragging in the crimson-muddy pools that had formed on the ground.  </p><p>“Daniel,” she said sweetly, patting his cheek. A woven basket filled with the last flowers of the season hung from her arm. “We will be hosting the mayor and his wife and some of their friends for dinner, go home and wash up. You won’t have time to change between then and the service.” </p><p>“There’s still a lot to do,” Danny told her, gesturing to the pigs still waiting to be split. Stiles kept his eyes on his task, knowing better than to watch the two of them. Mrs. Māhealani had had him whipped as a boy for dropping eaves and mouthing off to her when he'd been caught.  </p><p>“John’s boy won’t mind finishing up here. Now run on home.”  </p><p>Danny shot him a look when it became clear his mother wouldn’t ask Stiles if he was busy or pay him any mind at all. Stiles gave him a minute shake of the head. Danny packed up his knives, kissed his mother’s cheek and dashed off into the throng of bodies.  </p><p>“Won’t have any mischief, will we?”  </p><p>"No, Ma’am.”  </p><p>“If you finish your work and make yourself presentable for church, I’ll have a rack of lamb sent to your father.”  </p><p>“Thank you, Ma’am,” he muttered and she continued on her way, brightening when she spotted a friend in the crowd and calling out to them. He kept working and chewing on the inside of his cheek until it bled. The pig landed with indignity on the pile of halved corpses already piled on the shallow wagon beside the table and Stiles swiped his arm across his brow.  </p><p>Above him, the sky was cloudless, a bottomless vast blue and the sun beat harshly against his eyes. As he moved to Danny’s unfinished hog, his spine shivered. It might have been the cold at first, his arms were already goose-pimpled where he’d sloppily pushed his sleeves pass his elbows, but when it lingered, Stiles stopped what he was doing and touched his nape.  </p><p>He turned sharply and there were eyes in the crowd, watching; eyes belonging to a man he did not know. He stared back if only because he knew everyone in the village and they knew him and there should not have been unfamiliar faces here, not now after the gates were barred.  </p><p>The man stood with a few others, all of them alien to Stiles. He muttered something to another in his party and suddenly there were two sets of eyes watching through the crowd; sky colored eyes. For a moment Stiles thought he was seeing visions no one else could, because no one else seemed bothered until the Mayor appeared in his fine hare coat, stepping out of the clothier’s proclaiming something that was lost in the bustle around them. Their weighty looks left Stiles in a sticky way: going away from him and returning, going away again as they set off down the main drag.    </p><p>Stiles never stopped observing, though his hands went back to work, gently tugging and snipping and tossing away useless parts of the hog. The Mayor was showing them the cornucopia, introducing them to Robert Martin’s team of builders and laughing heartily; it was disgusting. There was a reason outsiders weren’t allowed during this time. They didn't care about Wall enough to understand that their disobedience did nothing more than hunger it.  </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Same Boy You've Always Known</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Stiles ran home to scour his hands and bring his father supper. John was propped up reading in his bed, the candle light having sunken into a puddle of sugary beeswax. Stiles laid the tray of stew he had left to simmer by the hearth that morning. Some of the carrots had gone mushy since he'd had to drop them in to the broth early knowing he wouldn’t have time to check back on it later in the day.  </p><p>“This damn thing expects me to believe there’s cities on the coast all wired up with bulbs. Mrs. Drover’s a fool if she thinks a lick of this is true.”  </p><p>“Hubbard has electric lights,” Stiles pointed out, fluffing the pillow under John’s splinted leg.  </p><p>“<em>O</em><em>ne </em> house,” his father snapped, throwing down the book. There weren’t many, so Stiles folded it neatly closed and placed in on the nightstand. It was the rare peddler that would bother to hike the narrow mountain trail loaded down with books to trade in Last Rest. Most of the farmers on the outskirts of the town couldn’t read beyond receipts of payment or debt. His father and their neighbors all swapped the few books they had, especially now that John was forced to bed-rest until his leg mended.  </p><p>“Where are you off to in your best shirt?” John asked.  </p><p>“I’m getting a pint with Danny."</p><p>“They serve pints in the chapel now?”  </p><p>“After he’s done with the service.”  </p><p>John caught his elbow, stopping him from fussing over the blankets. His hands shook without something to keep them busy.  </p><p>“You don’t have to go just ‘cos they expect you to.” </p><p>“I’m getting a drink."</p><p>“You been shaking like a leaf since this morning. Did you drink any of that tea the doctor gave you?” </p><p>“I had some, I have to go.” </p><p>John sighed and nodded and told him to be safe on the road. </p><p> </p><p>Stiles watched them haul the vast offering slab, one as long and tall man and twice as wide over the Wall. It was a splendid feast in the torchlight; the golden light bathing over an arrangement of meats, flowers and garlands and the rich scent of incense wafting from burners mounted all along the rim. It grew shadowed by the time it reached the top until vanishing from sight.  </p><p>The crowd mumbled prayers, their hands clasped together under their whispers, but Stiles didn’t join them. Prayer and screaming into a deep, dark chasm proved little difference in outcome to him. The Reverend told him when he was little that there was always someone to listen to prayers, be it God or angels or the Four. Crouched over his straw-stuffed mattress, his knees aching on the cold floor, he’d never felt surrounded by anything other than the walls of his bedroom.  </p><p>And the Wall didn’t ask for prayers, it asked for meat.  </p><p>As this thought, or farewell, crossed his mind a horrible <em> snap </em> cracked in the chill night air and then a thud shook the ground. Blood drained from his chest at the sound, his eyes darting. A woman cried out and when they came to understand as she did, more wailing rose up. One of the offering’s ropes had broken under the weight of it and all of it had come sliding down half over the village side of the wall, half over the Murks’s side. One of the pig halves grotesquely straddled the barrier, its eye-less face grinning at them.  </p><p>Several people threw themselves at the ground, sobbing, trying to gather up what was not completely smashed and others rushed to help the Wallmen right the swinging offering slab. Before they could rig the pullies to drag it back up the ropes began tearing, one after another until the slab was gone out of sight, having landed fully on the other side of the Wall.  </p><p>Fear made his head whorl. Stiles couldn’t snatch his eyes away from the pig on the wall, from its cruel smirk. He'd done everything right, he’d cared for his father when his horse threw him, made dinners, brought whatever food was spare to the Mrs. McCall, gone to church every Sunday and cleaned every animal Mr. Māhealani gave him that day including the one mocking him now. He’d done as the Wall asked and yet – it wasn't the Wall’s doing.  </p><p>It was Fox’s.  </p><p>He lived subserviently to the village, to the Wall, but not to the Fox. The pig wasn’t smiling like a pig, it was Fox, grinning at him, reveling in its arrival. Before he could run away, run home, force himself get away from the others, Dorothy Smallwood was upon him, her face tear streaked and hands caked in dirt. Her palm broke across his cheek hard enough to put him on the ground, and a sound came out of him, an <em> animal </em>sound of fear that made her eyes bulge with repulsion and she hit him again and again until his nose bled.  </p><p>“Please,” he begged her, his fear untying a tongue he’d obediently learned tie, “it wasn't me!" but she was looking through him, he wasn’t real to her, just some <em> thing</em>. Fox was turning out lies from him even now. It made him sputter untrue pleas of his innocence.  </p><p>“Haven't we let you to <em> live? </em> ” she screeched, snot running from her nose and tears making her eyes glossy in the low light, “Given you <em> work </em> ? You have charity and God and <em> you ruin us!</em>”  </p><p>People gathered around them, but did nothing to stop her and briefly, Stiles saw Melissa McCall among them looking ashamed. He reached out to her, begged her for help, but she just watched him, a streak of embarrassment flushing her cheeks. She'd held out hope when he was younger. He'd overheard her put John and Claudia at ease, hiding on the stairs in his night clothes; she told them he was too precious to be evil.</p><p>He stopped trying to cover his face with his arms when he saw the expression betrayed in her face.  </p><p>“You are a <em> demon </em>!” cried Dorothy, breathing hard and finally collapsing backward to weep into her hands. He might have been crying as well, but he couldn’t tell whether the wetness slicking his cheeks was blood or tears. Despite the pounding in his skull, the core of his pain was not physical; no one could castigate him like the Fox could. Not more than a minute passed midnight it'd sprang from the ground somewhere in that wretched Murk, beyond the Wall he tried so hard to appease and bounded into Last Rest already waging a war of chaos.  </p><p>Reverend Whittemore materialized from the angry whispers and tears of the mob. He looked down on Stiles’s bloodied face, his eye now swollen half closed, and a muscle in the Reverend’s cheek bounced. Anyone else thinking of raising a hand against him restrained themselves in Whittemore's presence.  </p><p>“Can you stand?” he asked coldly, voice frozen as the ground.  </p><p>Stiles nodded immediately without much thought to whether or not he could. Trembling and half-blinded, he got to his feet. His shirt was pinkish and muddied, the collar torn. If only he could sink in to the soil and disappear. Every thread of him pulled tight to his body, avoiding the angry faces on all sides.  </p><p>“Go to confession,” the Reverend ordered and again, a nod bobbled his head and he hobbled away from them.  </p><p>He flung himself down into the first pew. The church was warmed and decorated. Dominating the space, just below the solemn gaze of the Lamb, was a massive, roaring fireplace, one housing most of the New Year’s bonfire. His cuts stung when its billowing heat reached him. He waited for the Reverend to reappear and to bring him into the confessional for a long time. The crackling, dancing flames, made him heavy, melted the snow in his hair and on his coat and he thought of the last time he'd come to confess.  </p><p>Fox hadn’t allowed it, even during slumber, the creature twisted his reality, made his thoughts strange even if he thought they were pure. And it had contaminated the Reverend with its sickness. Even though he was married, had sons, was pious, he’d bent Stiles over his desk, fucked him like an animal.  </p><p>No matter how much Stiles had tried to think of Mrs. Whittemore, of what adultery would do to his soul, Fox made him stupid. He remembered Whittemore’s heavy, rough hands on his hips, the ragged sound of his breathing and himself, mewling, pushing back into the heat and pressure and pleasurable sting. And he remembered feeling hollowed by what he had done, lying on his bed at home, alone and feeling nothing. No remorse and no warmth or affectio</p><p>They never spoke of it after that and occasionally he wondered if it happened at all; if neither of them acknowledged it it could become invisible, disappearing from reality, fade fast like a bad dream. </p><p>The empty feeling had him now and, exhausted, he dozed off in the pew, chin slumping to his chest.  </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. This Protector</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Why has no one dressed his injuries?!” cried a feminine voice. His cheek was being patted gently by a gloved hand and when his eyes split open an angelic face was close to his. She was raven haired with wideset dark eyes and skin fair as cream.  </p><p>“Please, Miss Hale,” came the Mayor’s voice nervously, “it’s better you don’t touch – him.”  </p><p>The word that nearly fell from his lips was <em> it </em> , rather than <em> him, </em> and Stiles felt a distant sting. His gaze rolled around the room, at all of the people gathered there and most of them strangers: three women, two of them younger and one that was clearly their mother, each dressed in fur lined brocade and over coats worth more than Stiles’s father’s house and two men, both sharp faced and handsome. The five of them were of an unearthly quality, like porcelain figures and their smell – Stiles’s eyes drifted closed when he pulled in a nose-full of them. Lemons and mint and rosemary, like spring after rain.  </p><p>The girl kneeling by him rolled her eyes and asked, “Are you in pain? Are you able to speak?”  </p><p>“Who?"</p><p>“I am Miss Cora Hale,” she said, “Why did that woman attack you?”  </p><p>“Miss Hale, as I said outside, it is truly not necessary we intercede,” spouted off Mayor Hubbard, “Reverend Whittemore has things in hand.” His ruddy face had broken out in an ungainly perspiration which he dabbed gingerly with a silk handkerchief.  </p><p>“I'm also curious what exactly that ugliness was all about,” said the elder of the two men, though he did not seem appalled as his words implied, rather morbidly intrigued like a student observing in an operating theatre. His icy blue eyes twinkled.  </p><p>The Reverend cleared his throat. “Stiles is a special child,” he said and a tremble picked up Stiles’s spine, for he had never heard himself described so agreeably by anyone other than his father.  </p><p>“So special a woman nearly <em> bludgeoned </em> him to death?” balked Cora and the other young woman, presumably her sister they were so similar in looks, said her name crossly and with slight warning. From her expression, Cora had heard her name said this way many times before and dismissed it.</p><p>The Reverend’s lips made a humorless smile and he said, “He was born under the sign of the Fox. It is discouraged that a woman become pregnant before or during that time; I’m certain the custom is not unknown to you, Miss Hale.”  </p><p>“Certainly,” said the older man slyly, “Even so, I don’t believe this boy had anything to do with your ceremony being ruined. I saw him earlier today making quick work of the hogs mounted on your offering slab.”  </p><p>“Yes well, you see,” stammered the Mayor.  </p><p>He was interrupted by a voice like velvet as the older woman spoke. Her voice was low and reserved and demanding of attention. She said, “They believe this boy’s association with the Fox is what brought mayhem to their ceremony.” Her tawny, almond shaped eyes went to Stiles, “Is that right young man?”  </p><p>But Stiles had no answer for her that would not deliver more pain to himself so he said nothing, his face stony. She nodded shallowly and continued, “This concerns me, Hubbard.”  </p><p>The Mayor’s eyes burned into Stiles no matter how hard he tried to hide it. </p><p>“What will be done with him?” asked Cora’s sister.</p><p>Neither the Reverend, nor the Mayor answered her immediately, rather they traded glances of uncertainty. Finally, Whittemore spoke slowly, holding a pregnant stare with Mayor Hubbard, “We will need to consider that carefully. There have been other incidences, Miss Hale. For Stiles’s own safety, it's better he not leave the chapel.”  </p><p>“What other incidences?” asked the smirking man and Stiles was nervous at his intrigue and the lilt of his mouth.  </p><p>“It’s really not necessary to delve into the gritty details-,” sputtered the Hubbard.  </p><p>“Mr. Hale asked you a question,” came a commanding voice, one that was more feral even than Cora’s. He was odd looking compared to the others, though clearly related to them. His features were extremes of theirs, bright eyes like the smirking man set just a hair too far from each other and high cheek bones over a strong jaw. They all wore shades of black, embellished in some way that made the clothes fine, except him. Were his coat, trousers and vest not so well tailored nor his boots polished to a glinting shine, he’d not look as well-bred as he did. He did not look at Stiles, not once, and Stiles was glad. He didn't have it in him to shoulder the weight of his stare. Mayor Hubbard seemed to be floundering under it.  </p><p>“His mother and a boy living near him both met untimely ends,” Whittemore swept in, sparing Hubbard any further embarrassment for the moment, “Recently his father was thrown from a horse and crippled. And there have been other incidents, spoiled grain stores, dead livestock, that sort of thing.”  </p><p>“It sounds as though each time someone stubs a toe in this town it's this boy’s doing,” mused Mr. Hale.  </p><p>“Are you implying the scriptures are mistaken?” the Reverend shot back expectantly.  </p><p>“Of course, he isn't,” answered Mrs. Hale, though Mr. Hale looked unrepentant for his sharp tongue. Her attention fell to Stiles and it was difficult not to fidget with his heart throbbing so painfully and his breath coming short. “May I have your name?” He licked his lips, stunned by her politeness.  </p><p>“Um,” he croaked, the split in his bottom lip burning, “I’m, I’m,” but there was no breath for making words. He blinked hard, scrubbing his face and was instantly racked with a shock of pain that made him shudder.  </p><p>Cora’s fingers circled his wrist and she said, “Try to breathe.”  </p><p>“His name is Mieczyslaw Stilinski,” the Mayor said for him and then more poisonously, he added, “Most call him Mischief.” Stiles was aware of the moniker, but what Mayor Hubbard did not say was that no one used any name when addressing him, if they did at all. A person without a name wasn’t a person. </p><p>“I believe indenturing those that violate the Wall is a common punishment here,” Mrs. Hale said calmly, “The safest place for Mr. Stilinski would then be working in the Mayor’s House until a different arrangement can be reached, don’t you think?” While Mr. Hale was clever and seemed to tout it, Mrs. Hale was more tactful in her ways. She ended her proposal with a private sort of smile that made it clear, to Stiles at least, that she and Mr. Hale regardless of whether they were married, were blood related.  </p><p>The Reverend and the Mayor spoke of Stiles’s wellbeing as if it was something they both valued. But as soon as the Hales’ eyes were averted he would be thrown in a stockade and at the mercy of his neighbors. He resisted the urge to throw himself at their feet, to kiss Mrs. Hale’s fingers, to beg her compassion, beg she take him away with them back to wherever they had come from. </p><p>He took shivering breaths and stared pleadingly at Cora as a few more words were swapped between the others. She regarded him keenly and maybe, for a moment, she understood him, knew he could say nothing in the presence of these two men or ever. Fox mangled his words, made him say and do things that were unspeakable and made him enjoy doing them. He didn’t want to bring misfortune on her or her family, he only wanted her help even if he did not know in what form he needed it.  </p><p>She gave his wrist a light squeeze and she looked, not to her older sister or her mother or Mr. Hale, but to her brother. They shared thoughts without speaking the way Stiles had once shared thoughts with Scott McCall, the two of them crouching under the table in his father’s house, listening to their parents talk. The young man leaned to Mr. Hale then and whispered something.  </p><p>“Mayor Hubbard,” Mr. Hale said grandly, “I think we can all agree that Mr. Stilinski should be cleaned up and fed and I'm famished. I've been hearing about Mrs. Māhealani's roast duck all day and wouldn’t mind a glass of wine.”  </p><p>Hubbard paused, hands resting atop his round belly, “Well, yes, yes of course. Whittemore will see to it Mr. Stilinski is discreetly moved to the servants’ quarters.” </p><p>“Derek and I can assist the Reverend,” Cora said quickly, “If that is alright with you, Mother.”  </p><p>Mrs. Hale nodded, “Yes, I think that would be best,” she said, intelligent eyes taking in the measure of the Mayor and Stiles wanted to sob. </p><p>“There is no need, I assure you,” stuttered Mayor Hubbard.  </p><p>“<em> Frankly </em>,” Mrs. Hale said, “I don't trust that that boy will make it to your servants’ quarters unharmed and I think we can all agree it's better for all if the Reverend gets on with his service.”  </p><p>“I think that is a wise plan, Mayor Hubbard,” Whittemore put in, though whether or not he believed it was dubious, “If the square is cleared, the likelihood of another altercation will be lessened.” </p><p>“Yes, I suppose,” Hubbard grudgingly agreed. This wasn’t about Stiles, not really. He wasn't sure what it was about. The Mayor was catching up to Whittemore’s line of thinking, though slowly. </p><p>Mr. Hale tacked on smugly, “Also I'm certain Mrs. Hubbard is not the sort of woman to be kept waiting.” He checked his timepiece and it seemed more a dramatic gesture than him genuinely consulting the time, “We appear to be several minutes overdue as it stands.” The Hales' company seemed a reasonable enough excuse for the Mayor and his family to skip church in order to feast.   </p><p>“Of course, of course,” the Mayor said, “and you’re right, Marjorie will have worked up a head of steam by now.” His white-gloved hand swept toward the doors and Mr. Hale nodded graciously. Mrs. Hale took his arm, having extracted an elegant hand from her sable muff and they glided from the pulpit with the Mayor waddling after them.  </p><p>Cora helped Stiles to stand and leaned him against her brother. Their eyes touched briefly, Cora's brother somehow managing to seem more mistrustful of the situation than Stiles. </p><p>“Mr. Stilinski knows the way to the side door,” Whittemore said swiftly, no longer putting on airs in their mother's absence.  </p><p>Stiles sagged heavily into Cora’s brother. His knees wobbled with every step and his eyes watered when a wintry wind blew passed them. The Hales did not speak while they waited in the graveyard at the side of the church for the Reverend’s service to begin nor did they once the square was clear. Stiles pointed them to a back road that passed the Mayoral Manor, one that would stray away from the main street in case of stragglers.  </p><p>They made it passed the tannery just before Stiles collapsed. He braced to hit the hard-packed snowy ground, his mind spinning away, but rather than meeting it and strong arm kept him upright, and that sweet, herbal scent rushed back in as comforting and gentle as he remembered the scent of Claudia's perfume to be.  </p><p>“This town is repulsive,” came Cora’s voice as he was hoisted up into her brother’s arms. Neither of them sounded worried he might die and it calmed him in a strange way even if he was there and not there with them, as if he were dreaming. “Mother’s a fool to bring us here.”  </p><p>“She's not a fool,” rumbled in the chest pressed to Stiles’s ear, dark and slow as sap.  </p><p>“These people don’t know what it is they’re afraid of and so they are afraid of everything, they blame everything.”  </p><p>Cora said nothing more until they arrived. Her brother laid Stiles on a cot by the fire while she began barking orders at the servants, demanding willow bark and hot water and bandages and Stiles realized he had been afraid, like Cora said. Afraid they would be seen on the road, that the Reverend would turn on them, that the Fox would lash out at them somehow and he had forced himself to stay awake until now. Soon Cora’s voice faded, and the spitting fire faded and the feeling of a hand, wide and dry and warm and smelling of spring, smoothing over his forehead, faded too. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Wasting My Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Stiles was shaken awake by hands not nearly as caring as those that had laid him down to sleep. The room was black, the modest brick fireplace having gone down to smolders. He knew, after a few seconds of shock, he'd been brought to Mayor Hubbard’s house, that this was supposed to be where the servants went about day to day chores out of sight. By his cot was a table, worn from years of use, piled with sewing baskets and a couple of chairs.  </p><p>He didn't know much about the mayor, only that he was rich and he must have been much richer than Stiles thought to keep a separate sewing room. Through the door just beyond where he lay was a hall of doors; a dormitory for the maids and valets. He stopped his delirious ogling when he realized it was Reverend Whittemore that'd woken him. </p><p>He scrambled back on his cot with a yelp and Whittemore gave him a swift smack to discourage anymore noise. The strike was not as hard as he knew the Reverend capable, not even as hard as Dorothy Smallwood, but his face was so bruised already it brought beads of tears that stung in his eyes.  </p><p>“I won't tell you this again,” whispered the Reverend. In the shadows cast by pale moonlight his face was awful, a mask of hard, unfeeling bone. “You do not speak to the Hales, even if they ask you a direct question, nor do you speak to Mayor Hubbard in their presence. You will do your chores and go to sleep as if your tongue’s been cut out.” </p><p>Stiles nodded. </p><p>“If I hear that you have spoken out of turn, I will personally see to it that you are flogged in the square.”  </p><p> “David—,” blurted Stiles and Whittemore jerked toward him, hand raise to strike him again, but did not. Instead, his open palm turned into a pointing finger, </p><p>“Do not call me that, <em> slut </em> <em> . </em>”  </p><p>Whittemore’s other hand gripped Stiles’s thigh hard enough to turn the skin under it purplish. A dark shadow crossed over the Reverend’s face, his eyes hooded as they left Stiles’s face and followed the hard rise and fall of his chest. </p><p>Stiles could feel his pulse in his gums, aching dully against the roots of his teeth.  </p><p>“Rev—,” Stiles tried, but the door flew open; it clattered against the wall. The sudden sound snapped Whittemore from Fox’s trance and he was standing fluidly, his hand’s absence leaving behind a cold spot on Stiles’s leg. Could he have willed it open? Maybe he was a witch, because he had wanted nothing more than to get away from the Reverend; the days spent convincing himself he hadn’t a violent, cursed bone in him were muzzy daydreams. </p><p>But it was not magic that'd scared Fox off. At first Stiles cowered away from the dark figure in the doorway, certain it was a wraith come to drag them both into the Pit, or worse, beyond the Wall. The broad shoulders and long legs ensconced in shadow took a step in to the room, light eyes burning for the briefest of moments as the moon played tricks with Stiles’s sight.  </p><p>Derek Hale’s suffocating presence filled up the small space, took command of all the air in it. Stiles tried to prop himself up, to look less – less like what the Reverend said he was. Derek’s gaze slid over him, pitiless. </p><p>“Mr. Hale,” Whittemore said, not pleasantly, but something close to it.  </p><p>“<em> Get out </em>,” Derek said, leaving no space for argument, his eyes clapping back on to the Reverend in such a way, with such hostility, Stiles’s toes curled.  </p><p>“Excuse me,” the Reverend told him. Whittemore bowed his head respectfully and was gone from the room, his long black robes fluttering.  </p><p>Derek did not turn to watch him leave, though his eyes tracked his movement from their corners. Each footfall over the oak floor was clanging hammer in Stiles’s ears and he had to close his eyes until they were gone. Silence fell back over the house. When he opened them again Derek was staring at him and his heart kicked up, flitting like a fledgling’s wings. It was too intimate of a look between two strangers and Stiles swallowed on a paper-dry throat.  </p><p>There might have been something Mr. Hale meant to say to him. His words were thoughts unable or unwilling to be more than that. Cora might have understood, as she had understood Stiles’s own quiet pleading, but there was nothing Stiles could make out from it.  </p><p>How must he have looked to Derek Hale? A wretch, ugly and broken, huddled on a spare cot reeking of old attic space. Stiles wanted to tell him it wasn’t true, he wasn’t so weak, he wasn’t the Fox even if it owned him, they weren’t the same. But he was forbidden to speak. Words were his plague; each one a diseased rat scuttling from his mouth. They swarmed his mind, clawing to be free and he shoved them down.</p><p>Derek left the sewing room then, receding into the night-fallen hall, the door swinging gently shut behind him.  </p><p> </p><p>In the morning, before dawn, Stiles was given a spare shirt and smock and brought to the Housekeeper. He was a taciturn man named Vernon Boyd, towering and barrel chested and dressed pristinely in a well-tailored suit befitting of his occupation. Stiles didn’t know this man either and again the wrong peculiarity of so many outsiders made his head swim. Around them the house waking. Rebuilt fires and cooking smells thickened the air. He used to daydream about living in a house like this, waking on a bed so tall his feet couldn’t reach the floor when he swung them over the side. </p><p>The Housekeeper adjusted his spotless white gloves as if a single wrinkle marring his appearance spoke poorly of him.  </p><p>“Master Hubbard has informed me of your situation,” he said without inflection and Stiles doubted the Mayor was the first source he had heard of the previous night’s events from. “You will take over the mending from Miss Reyes. You are responsible for keeping the sewing room orderly, that includes mopping and cleaning out the fireplace. You will eat meals after the staff, in the kitchen at eight o’clock in the morning and eight o’clock in the evening. You may attend church on Sundays. You may not fraternize. Do you understand?” </p><p>“Yes.” </p><p>“Good.” </p><p>“Mr. Boyd,” Stiles said quickly, “My father is bedridden.” It turned his stomach to think of his father alone waiting all night for his son and never making it through the door. John knew, and so did Stlies, that he might vanish some night, someone might grow tired of suffering him and decide to bash in his brain and leave him in the woods. Every year Stiles wrote a new letter for his father and hid it under his pillow in case that very thing came to pass. He prayed to God that John hadn’t found it, not when he had no reason yet to grieve.   </p><p>“I have dispatched a message to Sheriff Stilinski this morning informing him of your place here. You are allowed to walk home twice a day, but you will not be pardoned for any work going undone because of it. You are not the only staff member with sickly family.”  </p><p>The Housekeeper dismissed him and he retreated to the sewing room. He supposed it should have felt like a kind of prison with its sparse plaster walls and small, dusty window, but it reminded him of his mother’s den. They slept and cooked in the main room of the house, but John had set aside the tiny room for her. He said that a woman should have a place that was only hers. The two rooms were nothing alike in shape or furnishing. Maybe it was the smell. Maybe it was because he already felt so homesick. </p><p>The room looked to be used frequently, but not by a dedicated tailor. No one had taken the time to properly clean it; cobwebs were left high in the eaves and dust stuck thickly to any place a person did not spend their time mending. He could spot the map of daily routines in the filth.  </p><p>The only piece waiting to be repaired was his own shirt. It had been laid out on the table, already washed by the laundress and still damp. Stiles took a breath, one of sudden relief and went about hanging his shirt to finish drying. He found a scrub brush and pail in the cupboard.  </p><p>He scrubbed the floors until his hands ached. He flushed out the hearth and found a wood pile down the hill from the manor to replace the burnt-out logs. He shuffled the furniture until it pleased him. He beat the rugs and polished the pokers and swept dead insects out of the cabinets. He threw himself into it like he did each New Year, his active mind turning to fuzzy sound. Working put away thoughts of his father, of himself, of anything good or bad. It went against his personal grain to abandon chores half-done and his fantasies about running home went unsweetened. He did not want to trap himself inside of whatever box the Housekeeper currently kept him in based on whichever tall tale Boyd had heard.  </p><p>Whatever names they called him, they couldn’t call him lazy. Mr. Māhealani may not have harbored warm feelings and hardly spoke a word to him, but he knew that the man held his work-ethic in esteem and had gone so far as to recommend him to the owner of the Night’s Squall to clean the floors every other evening.   </p><p>When the cleaning was done and his bones were aching, Stiles wrapped up in his coat and made his way from the manor, taking great care to go unnoticed. The Housekeeper had said he was free to go. He’d said it. The farther he got from the Manor the longer its shadow seemed to grow.  </p><p>He was running by the time he reached the barley fields separating the Manor and his father’s house. The barren, sugar-coated plots were soon giving way to a patch of wood, one he knew better than any other. He would forage in these trees in the summer months for mushrooms and blackberries, sometimes with Scott when he was younger and sometimes alone, wanting to hare through the forest unseen, climbing the trees and hollering like an animal or mimicking bird songs. The limbs still held on to their coverings, thousands of russet and gold leaves growing brittle and chattering when the breeze blew by.   </p><p>Stiles stopped, hands on his knees, his breath fogging in front of his face. A column of smoke was rising from the chimney of his house. The whole town had to have known about the Offering slab’s destruction by now, even if they hadn’t seen it with their own eyes. One of the neighbors must have been kind enough to check in on John when the brush-fire of gossip spread. No one ever cast accusation on John for Stiles’s birth, not in the way they had Claudia. He was a victim of her choice to conceive rather than complicit in it. John always dried Stiles’s tears when the other children teased him and insisted that he and Claudia knew what they wanted when they made him.  </p><p>Stiles wasn't angry at his parents anymore, but he knew better than to believe he existed for any other reason than because of an accident.   </p><p>He kicked the snow off is boots on the door frame before entering. There was stew bubbling over the hearth, and he knew the smell instantly, recalled shoveling it down at Melissa’s table. She was knelt by the fire; her hands soot stained and froze when her eyes fell on him. They regarded each other, but there was nothing either of them had to say. Last night he had seen exactly what he was to her and it saddened him, maybe because he hoped silently that she still thought of him as she had when he was a baby. Now he knew, and he’d always suspected even when he hadn’t wanted to, they were strangers.  </p><p>He went to his father’s bedroom and just before he pushed aside the curtain she whispered, “Don’t tell him.”  </p><p>He ignored her.  </p><p>Tears sprang into John’s eyes and Stiles ran into his embrace. His father hugged him fast and tight, hand in his hair. He held Stiles back from him a moment later and asked, “What have they done to my son?” His thumb stroking the bandaged cut on Stiles’s cheek. So few hours of healing would have made the wounds look worse as bruises always seem to worsen before healing.  </p><p>Stiles’s eyes met the floor. He couldn’t stand to hear his father’s voice trembling. “I’m sorry,” broke out of him as a sob when he hadn’t known he would cry. And John pulled him back in against him. </p><p>“It wasn’t your fault,” John said. His father never blamed him. He always threw his anger on the Fox, always. There was never any comfort in it for Stiles. He wasn’t the Fox, but it worked through him. He failed to stop it from doing what was its nature to do.    </p><p>Stiles told his father the Mayor would keep him on for a while and he was being treated well. He said nothing of Reverend Whittemore or the Hales. Both would light his father’s nerves. He couldn’t stay long, couldn’t curl up at the foot of his father’s bed as he wished to. He filled a bag with his spare homespun clothes and the pillow from his bed, one his mother had embroidered for him. Before he left, he promised John he would return tomorrow.  </p><p>Melissa pressed an apple into his hand without a word. As he slowly trudged back through the empty fields, he ate it to the core, picked out the seeds and ate that too. He hadn’t had the time to realize he’d not eaten a scrap since his breakfast the day before and now that he had seen his father, found that he was being cared for, he was exhausted. His stomach whined for more when there would be none until supper. He picked some mint leaves from a stubborn clump of sprigs refusing to wither in the cold and chewed them to abate his hunger. The snow was not deep, not yet, but it was enough to make his journey arduous and freeze his feet as it melted into his socks.  </p><p>Stiles ghosted through the servants’ halls. The others were in the house, this place and that, quietly speaking as they worked, though he saw no one. When he opened the door to the sewing room, he found it in shambles. All of his work undone by muddied boot prints on the floor and hand prints on the walls, the furniture thrown over scattering bobbins of thread and needles and pins. Scrawled on the bricks above the fireplace were the words FOX WHORE written in horse shit. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. As Ugly As I Seem</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> was twelve, he was locked in a broom cupboard behind the schoolhouse while the other children chanted “Whore! Whore! Whore!” He didn’t think they’d understood the word. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> hadn’t. It sounded like something that should hurt him; it could have been any word really so long as his classmates sang it like they did.  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>There were some prostitutes along the highways, his father said, that kept travelers warm when they were lonely. That wasn’t the meaning behind their song, though. There were stories folks liked to tell about women born under Fox's zodiac spreading their legs and begging common forest foxes to spill seed in them. </span>
  <span>Stiles ha</span>
  <span>d heard worse in the Night’s Squall. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>No matter how he screamed, banged on the locked door, bloodied his fists on the planks, no one would set him loose. Their teacher finally came when the children had gone home and let him out. Her face pinched when she laid eyes on </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span>’s</span>
  <span> ragged knuckles and urine-soaked trousers. She had told John that it wasn’t right </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> be so upset by </span>
  <span>the </span>
  <span>pranks of other children, that he should go so far as to soil himself or send himself into frenzy like he had; like a beast would. She had known he was trapped there, had seen the closet shuddering with his panic to escape, and thought it better he be left there until he was calm.</span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> missed his suppertime setting things back the way they had been. He was angry. Angry with nowhere for it to go but in, in, in. Inexplicably, the destruction of the sewing room dredged from him more anger than he could contain and </span>
  <span>he </span>
  <span>hurled his scrub brush at the wall hard enough for the handle to crack. He screamed into his pillow. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They mocked him and he endured. They beat him. They spit on him, they groped him in the Squall, they left a noose in his school desk. He endured and endured and endured, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>why</span>
  </em>
  <span>? For a place in Heaven? As if Fox would release his soul from its maw because he had died. It would go with him to that bright place or burn with him in Hell. His father’s watery eyes from that afternoon returned to his mind and he was ashamed at his thoughts, at what he was insinuating, even privately to himself. Breath poured from him hoarsely as he stared at the brush. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He carefully massaged his face, wanting to stretch the skin around his eyes as he so often did but could not with so much swollen flesh. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> startled at the sound of his door creaking open and Miss </span>
  <span>Cora</span>
  <span> standing above him wrapped up like a Yuletide gift in red satin and ebony ribbons. To see her so clearly now, his eye having eased back open, he saw that she was very young, no more than fifteen, young enough to wear her dark, wavy hair unpinned. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She curtsied to him, a pleasantry he had never been on the receiving end of and he stood hastily to bow. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr. </span>
  <span>Stilinski</span>
  <span>,” she said, “You are invited to dinner in my family’s rooms.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Surely the Reverend would excuse his speaking to her long enough to decline? His throat tied itself up unforgivably. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t wish to embarrass you, </span>
  <span>Stilinski</span>
  <span>, but my brother overhead some of what was said between yourself and Reverend </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span> last night,” she told him and she looked like </span>
  <span>Derek</span>
  <span> then, devoid of pity for his situation; interested instead </span>
  <span>in </span>
  <span>the two of them, here, now, speaking as old friends. “It will be a private dinner. No one will know you’ve eaten with us as the rest of Mayor Hubbard’s staff are currently setting out his supper and our own household will be taking care of us.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>But she was a child. A lady of breeding, self-assured by her station in society, though a child nonetheless and an outsider. She couldn’t comprehend life in Last Rest as he did. The Hales would leave this place eventually, but he would have to continue living here under </span>
  <span>Whittemore’s</span>
  <span> acute gaze. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> shook his head. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Cora</span>
  <span> was the kind of person who did not know what to do with ‘no’. Her brow furrowed. She crowded him and he stumbled back, but she was upon him all the same and she growled, “We both know that I didn’t have to help you. You asked me to and now you will do this thing for me or you will regret it.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I say you can.” And she snatched his wrist and dragged him from the room with strength unfitting a girl her age and size. She near snapped his arm like a twig in her grasp. He wanted to rip away from her, tell her to stop being a brat, tell her she didn’t know a God-damned thing about him or his town, that she was an interloper set on assuring his destruction. Sparks of flame built in his throat and those words threatened, they scorched, but he fought them down. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Cora</span>
  <span> stopped occasionally on their route, listening for activity around corners and to </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span>’s</span>
  <span> surprise she was skilled enough at sneaking place to place; she delivered them to her family’s rooms unseen, as promised. The look she shot him after closing the door behind them was deserved for doubting her but did not change the fact that she had forced him here against his will. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Mrs. Hale was waiting for them clad in an exquisite black lace evening gown that made </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> feel cheap. His belly wobbled on seeing her. He should have twisted away from </span>
  <span>Cora</span>
  <span>, done as the Reverend said and stayed away from them. But it was too late for that now. This is where Fox wanted to be, what better place to run amuck while trapped in this house?</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“My name is </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> Hale,” Mrs. Hale said, offering him a hand to shake, rather than knuckles to kiss. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The pain in his throat felt as though the front and back of it were touching and he nodded, shaking her hand, his palm sweaty. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m pleased you’ve joined us.” She had sprayed on a little perfume, one that was spicy and wild smelling like some dark flower growing in a hot house. “You do not know me, Mr. </span>
  <span>Stilinski</span>
  <span>, and you have no reason to trust me, as I am certain there are not many you do trust, but I hope you come to understand that I'm a person of my word. No harm will come to you and no one will know you've been here.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He nodded again, seemingly incapable of doing anything else and his head was reeling with the </span>
  <span>surrealness</span>
  <span> of her. He had heard promises like </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> Hale’s before and he had seen them disappeared, denied, untold. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Her fingertips grazed his chin and he flinched. Her eyes were huge and dark and patient, like </span><span>Danny’s</span><span>. Her hand returned to tip his chin up toward her. She beamed at him, “You have kind eyes,</span> <span>Mieczyslaw</span><span>.” And he felt like a child under her watch, he felt as he had that night listening to </span><span>Melissa’s</span><span> soft voice from the top of the stairs. Unlike </span><span>Melissa McCall</span><span>, </span><span>Thalia</span><span> was substantial of figure and far taller than he. He’d never found out whether he had grown taller than his own mother and so her stature reminded him of </span><span>Claudia</span><span>, of staring up at from the </span><span>floor </span><span>at her. </span></p><p>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> wet his lips, his chest beating dully, threatening to pick up and make him dizzy.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Come,” she said, guiding him to the parlor turned dining room. Gathered there among the overstuffed leather chairs were Mr. Hale and the eldest daughter, </span>
  <span>Cora</span>
  <span> having disappeared somewhere into the ether. “This </span>
  <span>Laura</span>
  <span> Hale,” said </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>, her hand coming to the small of his back, “and my brother, Peter.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter Hale raised an eyebrow toward him from where he was sprawled on one of the sofas, sipping from a crystal tumbler and </span>
  <span>Laura</span>
  <span> curtsied. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> brought him to one of the chairs; its upholstery treated to a rich walnut color and it welcomed him, cradled his tired back and shoulders. A servant brought him a goblet of mulled wine and the cup looked absurd in his custodian’s hand. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He stared at the spiced drink, the kind of wine he only ever drank once a year at the town feast during Yule. He took a sip and then another and another until the cup was empty</span>
  <span>, </span>
  <span>his head </span>
  <span>lightened,</span>
  <span> and the servant was there again with a decanter to refill it for him. The Hales were silent as he drank. Inviting him here at all was likely to suit the purpose of their entertainment in this drab little town when they were accustomed to better, more exotic amenities wherever they had come from. But </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> was too tired to be insulted. If they wished to make fun of him or marvel at his unrefined manners, at least their wine would put him to a good, dreamless sleep. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Halfway through his second glass he slowed, the sweetness making his teeth hurt. Peter Hale was watching him bemusedly. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Mieczyslaw</span>
  <span>, I’d like to tell you why we’re here,” said </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span>,” </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> blurted, and his drowsy brain realized he had drank too much when he’d eaten nothing. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>What is a </span>
  <em>
    <span>Stiles</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” chuckled Peter. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles glanced at his glass and back up at Peter. He was already here, already certain to be strapped down and whipped for speaking to them against </span>
  <span>Whittemore’s</span>
  <span> wishes, so he said, “My father calls me Stiles.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> gave a small smile and said, “Stiles,” rolling the name around in her mouth and it was pleasant to hear it brightened by her cadence. “You were born here, Stiles?” she asked and he nodded, taking another swig. “Then you are a valuable source of local knowledge for us,” she said, “I own a fur trading company based out of Hollow Tree. We are looking to establish a new trading post here in Last Rest. The pass through the mountains may be blocked during the winter, but it is the most direct route to the capital and cities on the coast. Before committing, I need to be certain that this town is a good match to our values. And, honestly Stiles, I was appalled at what I saw in the square yesterday evening. Are there many Fox children living here?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> stomach soured. He’d not thought much of the motivations behind Reverend </span>
  <span>Whittemore’s</span>
  <span> warning or the Mayor’s fretting in church. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I shouldn’t be here,” Stiles said suddenly, and tried to stand, but </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> was there putting a gentle hand to his shoulder. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling,” she said, and it saddened him to hear the honesty in her voice, as if she really thought of him as dear to her, “I apologize. </span>
  <span>No more questions</span>
  <span>. As I said, you have no reason to trust us. Have dinner with us at the very least.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He couldn’t deny her. If she asked him again about himself, about Fox </span>
  <span>boys</span>
  <span>, he would have cut open each of his seams so that she might better see his stuffing. It shook him down to his bones at his need to please her, even knowing nothing about her. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> took his arm as they all moved to the dining room. He had never had a woman on his arm before, and he was after stumbling </span>
  <span>her</span>
  <span>, like a child chasing after his mother’s skirts. She sat him down in a plush chair before a place setting with more flatware and goblets than he knew what to do with. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> whispered to him discreetly, “Work from the outside in.” Across from him Peter chuckled again as if he had been able to hear her. “Laura,” she then said, taking her place at the head of the grand table, “where are the rest of my children?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Conspiring to be sure,” Laura said disinterestedly, sipping politely at her wine. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stiles,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> sighed through a smile, “</span>
  <span>People only talk about the miracle of having children; they never tell you children keep you waiting for dinner.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He forced a smile. </span>
  <span>He caught his reflection in the high shine of one of his spoons. His face was hideous splash of colors, his skin pale and dusty with stubble. He looked like a sleepless ghoul; an insult to their table. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“While we wait,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> said, “Is there anything you would like to know about us, Stiles?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He tore his eyes away from his reflection, “Um,” he had meant to tell her </span>
  <span>‘</span>
  <span>no</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>, not wanting to pry, despite her invitation, but her warm eyes were on him again and he couldn’t bring himself to say it. “Where – are you from?” he tried, straining to remember the last time he had ever made pleasant dinner-talk with anyone. John </span>
  <span>and he </span>
  <span>hardly spoke while they ate supper together. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Beyond the Wall,” Peter said into his glass and Stiles stared at him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> cleared her throat, “Peter, </span>
  <span>your</span>
  <span> jokes are made in poor taste here.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it in poor taste, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Stiles</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” <br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He thought Mr. Hale might challenge him or say something crasser, but instead he said, “Then I offer my apologies.” </span>
  <span>Somehow, it was as though he were still laughing even when his mouth was shut.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We're from Fever Hill,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> said, flinging </span>
  <span>her glare on to her </span>
  <span>brother, “</span>
  <span>It’s </span>
  <span>farther north than Hollow Tree. Have you traveled at all?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Still holding Peter’s grinning gaze, Stiles answered with a curt, “No.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You must go to the sea someday</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles drank down the rest of his wine and said, </span>
  <span>“I’ll be dead before I’m twenty-five; I don’t think about the sea.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>This looked to stump and mildly upset </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>, though the smirk on Peter’s arrogant mouth only widened and Laura put in, “I like him, Mother.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“So, there is a person in there after all,” Peter sniggered and Stiles stared flatly at him as their servant brought his empty glass back up its round middle. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Personally, I enjoy a Fox </span>
  <span>boy</span>
  <span>,” said Laura thoughtfully, </span>
  <span>“I’ve found them surprisingly sagacious.” She said it as if she’d just learned the word and needed them all to know she knew it.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> guts whined and slurring slightly, wine and exhaustion rushing to his head he said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Agreed,” said Peter, twisting to face his niece, “You should shut your trap before you catch a fly.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Mother</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” Laura squawked and the same time </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> gave an exasperated, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Peter.”</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Tally, your daughter’s a spoiled twit to say such a thing to our guest and you know it."<br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>I am not a twit, Uncle Peter</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” growled Laura, the poise Stiles had first seen her wielding melting away, “I said I </span>
  <em>
    <span>like</span>
  </em>
  <span> Fox </span>
  <span>boys</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes dear, you </span>
  <em>
    <span>like</span>
  </em>
  <span> a sophomoric </span>
  <span>concoction</span>
  <span> of them</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“As if you know </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span> about their circumstances,” Laura bit out, “Why would Stiles even be here if you did?” Stiles. Not Mischief. Not Mr. Stilinski. When </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> spoke his name, it was as if she were his mother and he one of her children, but when Miss Laura said it, there was no nectar dripping off her tongue. She said it as she would call the name of her dog. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Please, </span>
  <em>
    <span>both of you</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” barked </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>, but neither of them paid her any mind.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not the one talking about Stiles like he's not sitting at the table.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Laura rolled her eyes, “Stop </span>
  <span>trying</span>
  <span> to make drama were there isn't any, Uncle. Is that your plan? Turn Stiles against me to make him feel as though </span>
  <em>
    <span>you’re his friend</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” and then her attention was affixed to Stiles and all he could do was gawk at her, “He thinks he’s clever enough to manipulate you into helping us</span>
  <span>, even though you know he’s doing it</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Each hair on </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> body stood on end, his skin vibrating. </span>
  <span>Whittemore’s</span>
  <span> warning to stay away might not only have been to keep him from saying something that might risk new industry in Last Rest. There was a presence in the room, under the table, along the mantle of their hearth; one not unlike that of the Fox. When it drew near, he could taste it in the air, that musky, wooden scent of the forest creeping in around him. Though he wore boots, he swore he could feel loam under his bare feet and see his breath </span>
  <span>in the air – </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You</span>
  <span>’re paranoid</span>
  <span>,” Peter chuckled, “I</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>m merely suggesting your interest in our guest comes from a place of ignorance, to wit, Stiles seems to agree.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A thump on the table’s surface sent a jump through the plates and set the glasses ringing and clinking together</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> heart nearly stopped. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>’s</span>
  <span> hand was in a fist beside her plate, her eyes burning red stars, red like the Devil</span>
  <span>’s scales.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That is </span>
  <em>
    <span>enough</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she said, the words coming from somewhere deep in her chest. Peter cleared his throat and spoke to her as Cora had spoken to Derek, without words and </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> looked at her fist as if shocked to see the anger in it. Her eyes went to Stiles where he was rooted to his seat, heart tripping and engorged, managing to fill his chest up to his throat. But her eyes were brown as they had always been; large and comforting and stunned by her own behavior. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I apologize, child,” she said quickly, swiping a few fingers across her brow, almost self-consciously. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s nearly nine o’clock,” chirped Cora, sweeping in from a side hall papered much like her crimson, satin dress, “</span>
  <span>Did I miss the</span>
  <span> argument or has it only just begun?” No one dignified her with an answer. She glided to her seat beside her uncle. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Cora, we are all quite hungry,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> said, having fully regained herself, “Where is my son?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Searching for his red petticoat.” </span>
  
</p><p><span>Soft yet biting laughter trickled from Peter</span><span>; Thalia was not amused by a word of it. She struggled to look as if she were not struggling. </span><span>And there was an incompleteness to what Stiles was observing. The girls’ insubordination did not conjoin </span><span>with</span> <span>Thalia’s</span><span> authority, as if her speaking, ordering them to behave themselves w</span><span>ere a </span><span>sheaf of pages torn from the end of a book. </span></p><p>
  <span>“I would leave him to his sulking,” Peter advised and again there was piece gone from his statement. </span>
  
</p><p><span>“Very well,” </span><span>Thalia</span><span> signaled to one of her valets and soon platters and tureens of all shapes came pouring through the room on a torrent of</span> <span>black uniforms and starched aprons. As his plate was filled for him, </span><span>Stiles’s</span><span> stiff, aching posture unwound. He was drunk and afraid of </span><span>Whittemore’s</span><span> threats and seeing things that were not there</span><span>. Hiding his tremoring hands while holding silverware must’ve come across blindingly transparent.</span> <span>H</span><span>e could hear the breathy, gasping laughter of Fox</span><span> coming from under the table</span><span>. </span><span>The Imp delighted at his panic.</span></p><p>
  <span>The Hales politely pretended not to notice. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Who are your people, Stilinski?” asked Cora, a perfectly small bit of roast beef skewered on her fork. She made the food appear more refined than it was. He had never heard of wealthy folk serving poor man’s supper. During the last Yule Banquet the Mayor and Headwoman’s table had sported at least six fat pheasants and a suckling pig. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He quickly wiped a trail of gravy from his chin, his plate empty already, “My father was the sheriff.” He grappled with the rest of the story, the beginning and the end, people who had been that were no longer and decided the Hales had no business leafing through his. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Was?” Cora asked, earning a daggered stare from her mother. Stiles did not indulge her. He sat back in his chair as his plate was removed and contemplated whether it would be rude to ask f</span>
  <span>or more</span>
  <span>. Melissa used to make a roast not so different from this one, when her husband could afford the meat and was around long enough to buy it. Her cottage would smell like nothing else for hours after it was done, like slowly cooked meat and herbs and fat. He and Scott would </span>
  <span>lay</span>
  <span> by the low-burn</span>
  <span>ing </span>
  <span>fire, their bellies distended, laughing at nothing and </span>
  <span>enjoying</span>
  <span> the painful-pleasant feeling of</span>
  <span> fullness</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stiles?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He blinked a few times. He had forgotten his tea at his father’s house. It tasted like lamp oil and smelled no better; it made him stupid when he drank it, but without it his body was open to ticks and twitches. The Hales had been speaking still and he had heard none of it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I should go,” he said, but when he stood from the table, his brains swoop</span>
  <span>ed</span>
  <span> forward and he fell back into his chair. Mrs. Hale croaked his name, lurching up</span>
  <span> from her seat</span>
  <span>. Stiles tried to tell them he was fine, that being touched would make him worse, that he was merely fatigued from the day</span>
  <span>. Whatever he said came out garbled. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter lifted him.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Panic ratcheted and</span>
  <span> he</span>
  <span> struck out, flailing, hardly cognoscente of anything other than the need to escape as if he were trapped in a </span>
  <span>monster’s</span>
  <span> jaws. The man did not drop him or even falter. He offered only a grunt as he carried Stiles to the den and laid him on one of the sofas. Peter was not so much larger than </span>
  <span>him</span>
  <span>; perhaps a breath taller, and yet so strong, strong like Cora and Derek, strong enough to make Stiles an insect so little was the worth of his own strength. He pressed himself back into the cushions, panting and sweating and – his thoughts were everything, everything he had ever known and it made his neck heat up and seize</span>
  <span>. H</span>
  <span>e shut his eyes. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Above him the Hales were moving, speaking in hushed voi</span>
  <span>ces</span>
  <span>. Any </span>
  <span>place</span>
  <span> that contained this family was heightened. The walls were too brittle, the floors too flimsy under their feet. They should not be locked in a house, away from the rain and clean air and it made him dizzy.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A glass of water appeared under his nose, </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> hovering closely behind it, too present and unwrinkled by worry or any other arrangement of emotions taught to be befitting of a female. He took it and drank deeply until it was empty. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You require a goodnight’s sleep,” Mrs. </span>
  <span>Hale </span>
  <span>said. It was not what she had meant to say. It was behind her eyes, whatever it was, peering out, but indistinguishable. He nodded. Just over her shoulder stood the girls, whispering back and forth. Peter sat casually in another of the many wing-backed chairs. In the doorway to the dining room Stiles caught the back of a waistcoat, the broad back of the man wearing it, disappearing down the hall. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A ghost, maybe. </span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. A Boy's Best Friend</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The Hales didn’t come calling again. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Perhaps they were as good at avoiding him as he was at avoiding them. </span>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Mayor’s daughter ripped the lace cuffs of her gowns almost daily. Eventually he thought he might grow tired of mending them; lace strained his eyes, but he had never been allowed to handle it before. It was good and rough against his palms. Needles bit his fingers occasionally, and he smeared blood on whatever he was working on. He grew accustomed to keeping a small washing board and pail underneath his table and would bounce his foot against them as he worked. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He ate alone in the kitchen where a bowl and spoon were always left out for him. If there were pots and pans piled on the counter for scouring in the morning, he washed them and laid them to dry. Not out of charity, he thought helping might discourage anyone from spitting in his meals. Being served the bowl of whatever was leftover rather than cooking for himself was a stresser he hadn’t known to anticipate. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The house was endless rooms and corridors, and always, always empty. He would walk the slumbering halls during the nights sleep didn’t come and allowed his mind to wonder, to fantasize that he was the master of this place. He would imagine the scurry of feet, his servants avoiding his gaze as he came and went. </span>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Whoever had written on the fireplace arch did not return in the same way. T</span>
  <span>hey found other ways to torment him and he stopped suspecting it to be the doing of one person, but rather, several. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Vernon Boyd tossed the young lady’s gown down on </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> table</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>If you can’t perform competently, you'll be reassigned to the barn</span>
  <span>,” Vernon told him. His face did not change as he spoke. He </span>
  <span>did</span>
  <span> not say so, but </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> presence here was a disruption, one </span>
  <span>none of them would </span>
  <span>have allowed if Mayor Hubbard had not ordered it himself. The sleeves of the gown had each had </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> meticulous </span>
  <span>stitches</span>
  <span> torn out by the end of something sharp, and a new </span>
  <span>hole</span>
  <span> was gouged along the hem. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I</span>
  <span>’m sorry, sir.”</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Miss Henrietta expects to wear it to supper.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He</span>
  <span> waited until Vernon was gone from the room to cast disparaging eyes on the garment. It had been </span>
  <span>pristine</span>
  <span> when he left it on the hanger outside </span>
  <span>the lady’s</span>
  <span> room that morning. This </span>
  <span>prank</span>
  <span> was played on him again and again, revisited without imagination or change, over the following fortnight until Stiles</span>
  <span> started </span>
  <span>delivering his work to the closets of the owners himself only after allowing for the Housekeeper’s approval. He sensed listening ears when he went to Vernon’s office, maybe even muffled voices in the halls and the undoing of his work ended. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His father would ask him about the Manor each day when he visited, asking for decent gossip. Stiles never had any. Melissa was always there, doing the chores he used to mind. It wouldn’t have been decent for her to move in with his father and John told him she walked home each night, but there was a quilt folded on one of the sofas and a book Stiles didn’t recognize sometimes lay, </span>
  <span>dogeared</span>
  <span>, by the fireplace. She was alone and Stiles wished he could judge her more harshly, surely she deserved it. Her seeking out company in the growing winter darkness meant his father wouldn’t be alone every night; he wondered if he’d never been born whether she and John would have married after Claudia’s death. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He thought of thanking her one day as he passed her in the winter garden, pulling up heads of cabbage. Their eyes met, but somehow, thanks coming from him would be meaningless to her. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He returned that evening to his sewing room and found his cot wet and rank with piss. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When Claudia was dying her slow death, </span>
  <span>his father had sent him from the house</span>
  <span> for </span>
  <span>bread from the Elsie’s. She had baked special braided pan challah for </span>
  <span>his mother</span>
  <span>, a loaf she used to walk to town each Saturday morning to </span>
  <span>buy; even when they hadn’t the money, she said it was good to remind people they were still neighbors. </span>
  <span>He had stood on the balls of his toes to see the display platters in the window, all sprinkled with flour or dotted with fruits. Elsie packaged the bread in crinkly brown paper and sent him on his way with a handful of black cherries. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Some boys found him on the road: Jackson </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span> and </span>
  <span>Landsey</span>
  <span> Smith and Danny. They pushed him down</span>
  <span>, </span>
  <span>took his parcel and stripped him naked.</span>
  <span> They laugh at his little prick.</span>
  <span> Jackson and Halsey whipped him with thin switches</span>
  <span>, freckling him with welts</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>Danny was afraid of getting in trouble, he said so over and over. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t remember the rest of the </span>
  <span>walk</span>
  <span> home. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His father brought him to his room, ttelling him not to wail and to cover up because Claudia wasn’t strong enough to see him this way. It was the first night he remembered feeling the Fox. It had always been there, sneaking unseen at the edges of his vision. It boiled his blood once he lay in bed, alone and reliving the stings from the thin branches. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Mischief, mischief, mischief</span>
  </em>
  <span> it purred like a mad man, under his bed. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When he woke in the morning news had spread to his father that the chapel’s coop had been broken in to and all the hens torn apart. It couldn’t have been an animal, they said, because none of the hens had been eaten. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Frigid air nipped at </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> cheeks. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A peddler showed him wares from a large leather case set open on the square’s fountain rim. Rows of cloths and ribbon and thread and buttons were neatly arranged on the case’s walls, all the highest quality there was, the peddler assured him. He bartered for some new ribbon Miss Henrietta might like to decorate her bonnet with, new needles and a spool of black thread to replace the one in his cupboard that was nearly bare. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He thanked the peddler and was given a bow and flip of the man’s top hat. He was from some place away from here; his skin browned in the sun of a hotter region and spending the winter months with his family in town. He did a bit of sleight of hand and pulled a cloth flower from his hat and offered it to Stiles, gold molars winking at the back of his grin. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No thank you,” Stiles told him. The peddler’s flower was lovely and lovely things would not survive long, even hidden, if he kept them. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The peddler stepped closer. He wore an all-spice musk. He was one of the </span>
  <span>Blakeney</span>
  <span> men; the only family larger than the </span>
  <span>Māhealanis. There were so many brothers, he couldn’t recite them all by name. The peddler could have been George or </span>
  <span>Ahrem</span>
  <span>, or one of the twins. </span>
  
</p><p><span>As if they were gossiping schoolboys he said secretly, “Modesty is for women.” He pressed the flower in Stiles’s hand, “You like </span><span>expensive</span><span> things,” and the man’s mouth was close enough to his ear that his breath brushed against it, sending a thrum down </span><span>Stiles’s</span> <span>front</span><span>. He pocketed the flower and thanked the man. How many flowers did he give out a day, hundreds maybe, if he was any sort of salesman? </span></p><p>
  <span>When people wanted </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> money, they didn’t mind all his curses. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span> He had not taken five steps from the fountain before a column of black was before him, blocking his way. He didn’t startle at the sudden materialization, rather he held his satchel strap close to his body, protecting his things. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“May I walk with you?” asked </span>
  <span>Derek Hale </span>
  <span>and to hear his voice felt out of place mingled with the familiar bustle of town. The words were ground out under a pestle. </span>
  <span>Stiles snapped his mouth shut</span>
  <span>. His eyes darted, searching briefly for the Reverend, but it was futile; a village this small required only one set of eyes, any eyes, for talk to spread. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> told him abruptly and then, “thank you.” It was no fault of Mr. </span>
  <span>Hale’s</span>
  <span> that he should retreat so quickly and there was no need to be terribly rude. </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> bid him good day and turned the other way, back toward the manor. He visited town so infrequently now, he had wished to meander a bit longer even if exposing himself to the square may have been against his better interest. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He chanced a glance over his shoulder to confirm what the puckering of his skin was telling him: </span>
  <span>Derek Hale </span>
  <span>walked behind him, at a semi-respectful distance, and looked unbothered by the intrusion of it. He stared at </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span>, holding his gaze </span>
  <span>intrusively; </span>
  <span>it sent </span>
  <span>fear licking</span>
  <span>. Rich men and servants; a </span>
  <span>trite</span>
  <span> and predictably ugly story. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> reached the road that would bring him up the slope to the Manor, but it was a long way through fallowing fields where there would be no one. His teeth gritted, “Mr. </span>
  <span>Hale</span>
  <span>, I’m not a slut hoping to get pushed down in a field.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s</span>
  <span> brow raised, his mouth a hard line. His stare sharp enough to flay skin, he said, “I know.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I have work.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You shouldn’t be walking alone.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He turned his back and it felt wrong, like turning his back on a black bear in the woods. When he looked back to be certain </span>
  <span>Hale</span>
  <span> was no longer tailing him, there was no one on the road.</span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Melissa was working herself down to the bone maintaining both houses. It wasn’t in her to talk about it. But Stiles saw the tears in her dresses, the fraying hemlines going un-tailored. He mentioned to John it would be no imposition for him to take one of her dresses back with him to the Manor. His father knew Melissa’s pride better than anyone, he supposed, and Stiles was unsurprised when his father told him where she hid the spare key to her house. </span>
  <span>John</span>
  <span> warned that </span>
  <span>he</span>
  <span> should not take anything he could not return within a day. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> entered the house the next day. He did not linger; he retrieved the dress not being worn at the moment. Once safely in hand he had meant to leave the cottage without any thoughts and without indulging the sour tinge of nostalgia. But he paused, without ordering his feet to do so, outside of the closed door to </span>
  <span>Scott’s</span>
  <span> room. Maybe it still smelled a bit like him. But that wasn’t possible. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Scott</span>
  <span> was in a box in the ground and had been there rotting for six years. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>There was a great, black dog in the snowy fields at dawn as Stiles walked to his father’s house before the Manor began to stir. It sat at the edge of the forest, near indistinguishable from the trees. It would vanish and reappear </span>
  <span>like</span>
  <span> a specter, sometimes trotting along the tree line, or sitting like an obsidian tower. Stiles quickened his pace, though it was too far off to be much of a nuisance. If it charged him he would have plenty of time to skitter up a tre</span>
  <span>e</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It was there again when he returned to the Manor and every day after, walking with him always at a great distance and he wondered if it were tame, a shepherd’s dog run away from home. It became a fixture, no different from the road or the banks of snow and sometimes Stiles would break into a run and the dog would </span>
  <span>jerk</span>
  <span> into movement as well and they would sprint until Stiles was out of breath. Sometimes, if the light was right, he would catch a glimpse of a long, pink tongue flopping from the beast’s mouth. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Those were days</span>
  <span> he could feel. </span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Expecting</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Marjorie Hubbard was a stone-mother. Her waist so thin and spine so tight she likely hadn't had need of a corset in many years. She wandered the halls with a white glove to test the surfaces for dust. She struck the maids. Stiles would see them sometimes, one or two crouched to the floor in the dormitories cradling their faces and weeping silently. He did whatever he could to avoid her and was so successful at it that when he tried to imagine her face he could never get its features quite right. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He climbed the stairs to replace one of Miss Henrietta’s dresses, humming softly to himself. During the day the family had appointments in town, and he could walk down the middle of the halls without </span>
  <span>care</span>
  <span>. When he reached Miss Henrietta’s doors a couple of maids saw him and slunk away. There was a crash from inside, Mrs. Hubbard talking, Miss Henrietta sobbing. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He left her dress in the hall cupboard. </span>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This was a day he felt nothing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He forced himself to feel nothing when he felt so much he thought his head might spin off his shoulders. No one told him what was happening. He found out in pieces: bloody sheets in the laundry, blood on aprons and gloves, maids scrubbing dripped blood out of the rugs, people coming and going quickly out of the dormitory, Undertaker </span>
  <span>Wickett</span>
  <span> in the hall murmuring with Vernon Boyd and Mayor Hubbard’s butler. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He was hanging </span>
  <span>Melissa’s</span>
  <span> dress on the line in the courtyard when a wiry young man with a limp came out of the scullery, a cigarette in his teeth. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It was Hubbard.” He struck a match, held it in a cup of his hands. Stiles took several seconds to realize there was no one else there with them. It was easy to forget to exist. He’d seen this young man in the Hale’s dining room; he had poured </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> wine. “You dumb?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Hubbard was what?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He leaned on the stair railing. “Knocked up that girl.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“She died?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Abortion </span>
  <span>didn't ’t</span>
  <span> work out.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Which one had it been? He hadn’t yet been able to decide who was missing from the familiar faces that crisscrossed his routines. It would have been a girl his age; Hubbard didn’t seem like the kind of philanderer interested in a woman too old to have attended school when Stiles did. What were their names? </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Vernon’s</span>
  <span> told ‘</span>
  <span>em</span>
  <span> to burn her mattress. I saw ‘</span>
  <span>em</span>
  <span> in there just now </span>
  <span>flip’n</span>
  <span> the </span>
  <span>fuck’n</span>
  <span> thing over.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“God.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>God</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It’ll stink.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He exhaled a blue breath, “He murdered her.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You shouldn’t say so out loud.” The serving boy’s gray eyes were on him for the wrong reason. Stiles gestured to the surrounding walls closing them in. The courtyard was bleak already so early into winter. He hadn’t thought a single ugly place could exist in the Mayor’s Manor before seeing it himself. Some of the ugly spots were ugly because of what happened in them even if the furnishings and decorations were the best attempt at opulence that could be made on the frontier. The courtyard was both ugly, unkempt, filthy and a secret place of small horrors. This was where servants took lashings, smoked, played cards, beheaded chickens and had sex. And every word uttered here, it seemed, could be heard from at least two of the rooms facing it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Makes more sense for Ms. to open her depot in Good River, </span>
  <span>y’know</span>
  <span>, financially; all those big-ass river boats in the marina. Shipping all the way to the coast. </span>
  <span>Wanna</span>
  <span> know why she’s here?” Stiles did not, but the young man talked anyway, blocking the path. “Good River’s somehow even more backwards than here, even with that </span>
  <span>kinda</span>
  <span> shit </span>
  <span>happ’nen</span>
  <span> in there.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> stepped quickly to him, to within kissing distance, and the boy stayed unwaveringly still. He smoked when most others would’ve jerked away, fearing illness or crossing. Maybe he was smart, maybe he was very dumb. It was on all of them, this quietly feral stench. They weren’t saying everything they meant, and they weren’t being what they pretended to be. </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> said, “She told you to come looking for me? You been following me all day?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Most of it.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What does she want? This is a Wall Town. She hasn’t seen anyone else like me because when you’re born under sign of Fox they smother you, strangle you, bury you alive, they throw you in the creek. They hire death doctors to split you open and take your eyes so you can’t come back from Hell. Mrs. Hale doesn’t need me to tell her what she already knows.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve got that dumb vacant look down so well I </span>
  <span>ain’t</span>
  <span> think you knew </span>
  <span>more’n</span>
  <span> a few words,” he chuckled. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s why I’m alive.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They all… think you’re </span>
  <span>stupid</span>
  <span>?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What does she want?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s </span>
  <span>someth’n</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop fucking ignoring me,” When he swore, he sounded like a child. He hadn’t meant to say any of what he had. His chin wobbled. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You think it’s all the same and doesn’t matter, but it does to her. They make </span>
  <span>ya’ll</span>
  <span> wear muzzles in Good River and Bruin’s Wood. But not here. And not in Fever Hill or Two Oaks.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Wh</span>
  <span>at does it matter</span>
  <span>?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Like you said, you’re alive.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They won’t let her go into the Murk; the minute she does they’ll arrest her.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Your immediate response to being called interesting is to assume the lady </span>
  <span>take’n</span>
  <span> an interest is a Wall lunatic. You’re </span>
  <span>think’n</span>
  <span> too hard about this, boss.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>That was one of his secrets and </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> had dozens. He lied and kept secrets and somehow, was still breathing. Don’t draw attention, yes ma’am and no ma’am, and never stop thinking. He couldn’t stop a mob. Looking how he looked, walking how he walked, shutting up, thinking, thinking, thinking made it so he never needed to; thinking and knowing when to say nothing. Helping other people attracted attention, but it wasn’t only Her Majesty </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> Hale </span>
  <span>tugging on a hook she was mistaking for a toehold, it was little C</span>
  <span>ora Hale </span>
  <span>who’d saved his life. No one put more effort into his survival than he did. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It</span>
  <span> broke what he knew</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles snapped, </span>
  <span>“How are you seeing all this and believing it? The Murk isn’t out there, it’s in here. You’re breathing it.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>S’pose</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>What was wrong with him? With them? They could have been witches. They could have been monsters. Except witches and monsters knew better than this. He couldn’t help them; they didn’t seem remotely aware that they needed it. He couldn’t convince them of their peril without endangering himself. He and the servant only talked as long as they did because one of his secrets was that he warred against himself, harder than he clawed for life. That was the heart of his fox-shaped demon. He wanted himself to fail. Failure meant it was over. They’d kill him and he’d sleep gratefully.  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His game, Fox’s game, was this. Push and pull. Come close, </span>
  <span>Hales</span>
  <span>, but not too close, just enough to smell the danger and flee from it, teeth snapping at his heels. He couldn’t commit to dying and Fox wouldn’t allow him the sudden escape of letting someone else decide for him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> sucked in a deep scenting-searching breath. He leaned closer to the </span>
  <span>Hales’</span>
  <span> servant, close enough to smell the heat on his neck, for the hairs under his chin to prickle. The viscous scent coming off his throat sent a pang through </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> jawbone. His eyes went heavy, almost drunkenly he stepped back. The smell was in his mouth, it greased his soft pallet. He had smelled this smell in a dream. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His boot heel crunched when he had expected it to fall flat. He stumbled back from a thorny plant, stubbornly reaching through a crack in the cobblestone yard. He must have coming apart a peel at a time. Talking to one of them long enough to darkly hope someone noticed; he could feel the manic look on his face. Stiles regarded the weed that had tripped him and the young man and decided to walk around the manor and through the front door rather than stay where he was any longer. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He knew how he looked walking away. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Reverend </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span> was sitting at the sewing room table when he made his way back to it. His appearance was something Stiles began dreading every night around supper time. When </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span> did not come and supper passed, it meant he was another day closer to when the Reverend did eventually make his way back. It was impossible he wouldn’t. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Stiles’s</span><span> feet brought him into the room. His </span><span>fingers</span><span> hung his apron.</span><span> Sitting felt like a hand</span><span> shoving </span><span>the back of his neck</span> <span>in</span><span>to the chair across from </span><span>David</span><span>. He sat. He stared at the table. His ears burned. </span></p><p>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span> stood. The motion shook Stiles. It hadn’t been particularly sudden or violent. He was the one reeling from suddenness, thrashing violently. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The Reverend shut the door. He pulled on his black robes, straightening them as he made a more detailed study of the sewing room in the daylight. When he looked at things it was never with a reaction to what he saw. He regarded their surroundings with squinty eyes.  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I was in Council this morning,” he said, “a Wall</span>
  <span>m</span>
  <span>an says he saw movement in the trees on the ridge. It’s very strange for there to be movement in the Murk this late into November.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles nodded, but he didn’t know why. He didn’t watch David walk around the room, he kept his eyes fixed to the table. The Reverend’s boots knocked softly on the floor, each of his steps sending a light pulse through </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> chair legs. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry –,” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“The Chamber is divided; half the town will starve to death if we attempt a replacement Offering. Robert Martin wants to cut your head off and hang your body over the Wall in the old ritual way, but the Book suggests a sacrifice would only hold sway with the forest if it’s really a sacrifice. We would just be benefiting ourselves.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> crushed in on himself, vision threatening, narrowing. The back of his chair bit into his spine. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve never seen a ritual-work result in a miracle, anyway,” sighed </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span> as he slipped back into his seat. “My grandfather once saw a creature seep through the mortar lines and cracks in the Wall, like gas, it fell in that heavy way, heavier than air, lighter than water. It went through the streets, this formless, shimmering thing. He said the sunlight glittered on it, but it cast no shadow. It went to random houses, slipped under the doors and brought out the children. They followed it, deaf to their parents; they went to the well and one after another, they jumped in.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Not all of them died, but the ones that lived were trapped at the bottom with ones that did. A Fox changeling living here at the time threw herself off the belfry when she heard what happened. She wouldn’t have been buried in the cemetery; still I’m sure suicide on her soul probably didn’t do her any favors in the hereafter. Undress.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> almost didn’t catch it. The word rolled over him as a thoughtless addition: </span>
  <em>
    <span>and so on</span>
  </em>
  <span>, </span>
  <em>
    <span>you see</span>
  </em>
  <span>. The Reverend sat consciously, in the practiced way he often sat at his desk. One hand on the table, the other on his thigh. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span> “I have a meeting later today with Mrs. Hale, Abel wants to show her the old factory ruins, he thinks he can sell her on renovating them,” he busied himself, searching through his inner pockets Stiles thought at first, or looking for his timepiece, “I’m beginning to think she’s looking for something other than real estate. She does have a way of sniffing around men that doesn’t seem entirely feminine, I can’t guess at what she might be after. No men richer than she for leagues around.” He pulled his penis from his trousers and relaxed back into his previous posture. It lay there in the fabric seat of his pants, thickened already, horribly mundane in its appearance. Something about it looked ill, it wept like a rash. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Now he did check his pocket watch and frowned at the time. “Council ran long.” His impatient gaze fell on Stiles. Stiles stared at the table. “We agreed you’d behave.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I have—,” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He stroked himself a few times. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you enjoy sucking </span>
  <span>off Derek Hale</span>
  <span>? Did you rub up against him until he was bewitched? Everyone tells it differently.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I barely spoke to him.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We agreed you wouldn’t. You can’t help yourself. </span>
  <span>Undress and come rub the cramp out of my leg.” His member twitched, it dripped. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The sewing room door swung inward. </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> curled forward, squeezed his eyes shut. Please don’t see me. Don’t look. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Christ, David is that your cock?” demanded Peter Hale. His voice, of all the voices that might have more of a reason to come through the door, cranked </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> head around. Fox wasn’t making sounds that were impossible, Peter, with the one-legged servant from the courtyard behind him, stood there looking baffled, but not nearly as baffled as he was delighted by the absurd scene he’d unwittingly stepped into. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span> was standing</span>
  <span>, had himself deftly tucked away. His expression remained undisturbed. “Good Afternoon Mr. </span>
  <span>Hale</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve completely forgotten what I came here for, </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span>; a man can hardly just walk into a room, see a penis and carry on his train of thought.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It </span>
  <span>ain’t</span>
  <span> decorum.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, thank you, </span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span>, it </span>
  <span>ain’t</span>
  <span> decorum.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The Reverend’s mouth curled into passive smile, “God be with you.” He exited with a polite nod to </span>
  <span>Peter’s</span>
  <span> servant in the hall. </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> stayed where he was, his nails digging into his elbows. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Why does that man always smell like chicken litter?” </span>
  <span>Peter</span>
  <span> asked. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Couldn’t say, sir.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Dreadful. How are things </span>
  <span>Stilinski</span>
  <span>? Going well?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> couldn’t pry apart his mouth. He hadn’t any idea what would come out if he could.  </span>
  <span>Peter Hale </span>
  <span>fell into the Reverend’s chair. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t suppose you have any wine squirreled away somewhere in here?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“M</span>
  <span>s. </span>
  <span>said no more </span>
  <span>drink’n</span>
  <span> ‘fore noon, sir,” </span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span> reminded him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t drink, I can’t fuck, I’m forbidden from socializing – what do you people do for fun in this hick-town, Stilinski? Throw rocks at sheep?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you here?” </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> asked, of Fox’s volition he supposed. The piece of him that cared what the answer was, was elsewhere, listening to the deafening cicada chorus</span>
  <span> of his thoughts</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re so good at being invisible </span>
  <span>Tally</span>
  <span> was starting to think someone stuffed you under the floorboards. Not our maids</span>
  <span>, though</span>
  <span>, </span>
  <span>lemme</span>
  <span> tell yo</span>
  <span>u</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Suzette,” nodded </span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span>, “with the jaw.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I hear it in my sleep.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re following me,” </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> stated. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span> is following you, pickle. For your protection.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“A wine server with a stump leg?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m a butler, actually.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you really?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I think he wants to fight, sir.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Now boys,” Peter tutted, “Unlike Reverend </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span>, we keep our cocks in our pants and our heads out of our asses. I just remembered why we came. I’d like hire you.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No thank you.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Look, sir, he’s doing the dumb face again.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Keenly observed, </span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span>; </span>
  <span>you don’t even know what the job is, you don’t get to say no yet.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles obliged, “What’s the job.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We need a tailor, obviously.” Peter leaned his elbows on the table, “Last night Mother Hubbard mentioned the state of the old cheese cloths as being ‘adequate’ after you repaired them. She might as well have moaned it.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No thank you.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I haven’t told you the pay.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t care what the pay is,” Stiles said. He shook off his stupor. Indulging feelings like these when they inevitably came back around ate up a lot of time if he let them. Fox boys had several skins, at least, he did. “Build your trade depot or don’t.</span>
  <span> Mrs. Hale is a businesswoman; she should understand risk.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“She understands there are a thousand ways to mitigate it,” replied Peter, “she’s merely getting creative with her approach. Sometimes people know more than they know.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever you’re implying, I’m not obligated to tell you anything. Why should you have an advantage over anyone else? Why should you have more advantage than me?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter rapped on the table, “That’s right, Stilinski, we shouldn’t. But we want it and unlike everyone else, we can pay for it. You want more than fixing a rich virgin’s clothes for the rest of your life? Name your price. People aren’t fair; money is what’s fair. Work for me and you can buy your way out of this shit hole, maybe put your daddy up somewhere nice.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t sell you information I don’t have and I’m not a tailor.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span> broke in, “Heard Ms. Claudia was a real </span>
  <span>swing’n</span>
  <span> dick with needle and thread before the end.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“If you want to hire </span>
  <span>her,</span>
  <span> you’ll need a shovel,” Stiles bit back. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Give it some thought,” Peter Hale advised. He gathered himself up. “We won’t wait forever.” </span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Forever; they scarcely waited a day. No one told him he was being uprooted, he walked in amidst it. Vernon Boyd and </span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span> with the sewing room’s large supply cabinet leveraged between them shoved by him in the dormitory hall. They wouldn’t answer him when he demanded to know what was going on. He dogged them up the stairs arguing over what, he hadn’t a clue, both men brushing him off with grunts and huffs. Miss Laura was waiting outside the doors to the Hales’ apartment. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Peter thought you’d come running along,” she said to him. Boyd and </span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span> crossed the threshold into the rooms and he found that he </span>
  <span>couldn’t</span>
  <span> bring himself to. </span>
  <span>Their first dinner had been a secret, but plenty of people had seen him come here. What would they say now? That he was fucking all five Hales and their servants? </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>What are they doing</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not allowed to get into the grit of it, but as I understand, Mayor Hubbard has recently become aware of some indecent behavior that has gone on between one of his cabinet members and a staffer. Said staffer has been moved out of the dormitory so as not to continue distracting the rest of the help or the Mayor’s advisors.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr. Hale did this?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve also heard that this mystery servant was nearly thrown out and left at the mercy of the town, but luckily was defended by a witness to the misconduct whose esteem is rather high with the Mayor for some reason.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles ground his teeth.</span>
  <span> He stomped back to the stewing room to make sure none of his things weren't being unkindly handled. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles never dared playing on the Wall </span>
  <span>like the </span>
  <span>other children did. They </span>
  <span>made a </span>
  <span>show of climbing it, sometimes reaching the top or throwing stones over. Scott join</span>
  <span>ed</span>
  <span> in when they were older because he was strong and cocksure. He once climbed it and leapt down to the other side after throwing </span>
  <span>back</span>
  <span> half a barrel of dark beer. </span>
  <span>He </span>
  <span>begged Scott not to be fool, but his quiet urging had been drowned</span>
  <span> the other boys’ goading</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>Landsey</span>
  <span> shoved him </span>
  <span>out of the way</span>
  <span> and told him be a man. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Scott pretended to be attacked, </span>
  <span>he’d </span>
  <span>thrown around sticks and rustled the leaf litter and cried out terribly</span>
  <span>; </span>
  <span>the others were pale even under cover of night. None of them spoke or moved, except for Stiles who had flung himself halfway up the side, racing, every part of him exposed and frightened and then Scott </span>
  <span>re</span>
  <span>appeared, straddling the top in hysterics and crowing like a rooster. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They hadn’t spoken for days after. Scott’s eyes would glaze over if the subject of that night ever came up.</span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p><span>He</span> <span>heard </span><span>that the doctor had to sew Scott’s eyes shut to give him the appearance of sleep in his casket and during the wake, he saw the thread under his friend’s lids. </span></p><p>
  <span>There was no way to be put to rest that gave him comfort. Burning away to nothing or being cored and stitched and trapped in the earth gave him blips of night terrors even when he was awake. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles awoke in a cold sweat. It drenched his sheets and night clothes making him translucent in the moonlight. The bed the Hales had given him was not as his imagination had promised, but it was softer and full of something other than hay and mites. He’d fallen asleep on that soft top, only to gasp awake with a crick in his back. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He</span>
  <span> paced the room, glancing out the window and rubbing his shoulders to remind himself he was awake, his throat sour</span>
  <span>ed by </span>
  <span>bile. He pulled down his bedding and made a pile of it on the floor </span>
  <span>by the</span>
  <span> fireplace. </span>
  <span>S</span>
  <span>leep returned fitfully and he was awake again just after sunrise, awaken</span>
  <span>ed</span>
  <span> not by the calling roosters, but by searing pain in his mouth. He bolted upright, sputtering, thinking a coal had </span>
  <span>fallen</span>
  <span> from the hearth and passed his lips, but there was nothing lodged in his throat when he pawed at it, coughing. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Strings of drool hung from his mouth, his breathing ragged, as he went to the pitcher and bowl </span>
  <span>on the bureau</span>
  <span>. The drink of water </span>
  <span>fed </span>
  <span>the burn and he choked most of it back up. It was his tongue, his tongue was rotted, rotting from the inside; the Reverend had told him to go about his days as if he were mute and he had </span>
  <span>disobeyed</span>
  <span>. He crumbled against the wall, all of the strength going from his legs</span>
  <span>, </span>
  <span>toppling the basin and pitcher. They smashed on the floor, pieces of porcelain skittering away, but the noise was damped down, happening far from him and he was trying to breathe, but even dragging air over his tongue made him shiver and cry out. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The door flew open and Laura and Peter stood there, each looking more irritated than the other. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What in God’s name,” Peter</span>
  <span> grumbled</span>
  <span>, his crystal eyes taking in the room and Stiles huddled on the floor. “</span>
  <span>Who’s going to replace that, <em>you</em></span>
  <span>?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>You’re the one insisting we keep him,”</span>
  <span> Laura groused as she strode across the floor </span>
  <span>and</span>
  <span> crouch</span>
  <span>ed</span>
  <span> by Stiles, “Whatever is the matter?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Can’t you tell?” asked Peter, rolling his eyes, though he made no movement to help. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>No</span>
  </em>
  <span> Peter,” Laura snarled, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>And neither can you</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” Her voice was mothering when she </span>
  <span>asked</span>
  <span>, “</span>
  <span>What’s </span>
  <span>happened</span>
  <span>?</span>
  <span>” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He coul</span>
  <span>dn’t speak</span>
  <span>. The pain </span>
  <span>spread so far it was in</span>
  <span> his legs and arms. Grimacing, he pointed to his mouth and she pinched his chin between her thumb and forefinger so that he might open it, but how must it have looked? </span>
  <span>Greenish, leaking pus? R</span>
  <span>iddled with maggots</span>
  <span>? </span>
  <span>Stile</span>
  <span>s’</span>
  <span>s</span>
  <span> eyes watered when he swallowed. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“If you insist on being </span>
  <span>obstinate,</span>
  <span> we should leave you here to your own devices,” Miss Laura informed him and </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> mouth fell open. Already he was going mad with the excruciation of it</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>“Sores,” she concluded, “Peter, </span>
  <span>call</span>
  <span> the doctor.”</span>
  
</p><p><span>Sores sounded as though the lesions were not as terrible as they felt, as if he had merely cut himself rather than the muscle putrefying of its own accord.</span> <span>Unbothered</span><span>,</span><span> Peter cast about the room until spotting the makeshift bed Stiles had slept on. </span></p><p>
  <span>“What on earth have you got against our things?” Peter implored, “Did these people raise you in a kennel?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>As Laura helped Stiles to stand and guided him to the bare mattress she sniffed, “You haven’t much room to talk, Uncle, given your upbringing.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter’s mouth quirked, “You know, I never much cared for your father; I warned Tally against the perils of </span>
  <span>fucking</span>
  <span> a self-righteous wastrel.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When Doctor Hadley </span>
  <span>arrived,</span>
  <span> he poked and prodded Stiles silently and under the watchful eyes of Peter Hale. It was of some comfort to have him there, if only because Stiles seemed to matter to him enough – </span>
  <span>in pursuit of his own nebulous ends </span>
  <span>– to preserve him. And Dr. Hadley was no friend to Stiles or his father. No matter what he was examining Stiles for, whether to bind an injury or check up on the state of his health, he always demanded Stiles doff his clothing, every stitch of it. </span>
  
</p><p><span>For many years he had not known </span><span>it was a st</span><span>r</span><span>ange thing for a doctor to </span><span>do</span> <span>until he learned that when Hadley was a boy, Fox children </span><span>that were not flung over the Wall when they were born, were not permitted to wear </span><span>clothing</span><span>. Clothes were the mark of higher being, a dividing line between humans and animals and human children were not born under sign of Fox. Hadley refused to see him if he did not undress, a point loudly argued by the doctor and his father, but there were no other doctors that could be reached without several days ride by horseback. </span></p><p>
  <span>Stiles did not try to explain any of this to Peter, though he had gotten a funny look from the man when a servant informed them of Hadley’s arrival and Stiles immediately and painstakingly shrugged out of his night clothes. His room and the doctor’s hands were ice cold and his skin pin-pricked with goose pimples. Hadley ordered him to lay back on the bed and spread his legs and while he had few reservations about nudity, the position was a vulnerable one, one that made his muscles harden with the wrongness of an exposed stomach. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“As I said in </span>
  <span>my</span>
  <span> message,” Peter said, coming off the wall he had been leaned against, “Stiles </span>
  <span>seems</span>
  <span> to have ulcers on his </span>
  <em>
    <span>tongue</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“He needs to be fully examined before he is diagnosed,” Hadley </span>
  <span>spat</span>
  <span>, his wrinkled face’s lines deepening. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I think you’re more interested in humiliating him than treating him, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Doctor</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Peter shot back, his bluntness registering on Hadley’s face as if he had struck him, “And I suggest before you lay another hand on him, you consider your position in this town and how precarious that position is made based upon the actions taken in this room.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles wanted only to sit up, or pull something over his stomach, but he did not move from the awful splayed arrangement Hadley had demanded he take while to two men glared at each other. Footfalls, quick and sharp reported from the hallway and the door was being shouldered open and Stiles hinged upright at the noise to cover himself as Derek Hale came into the room. Rosy, embarrassed splotches broke out in a wreath across </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> chest</span>
  <span>, </span>
  <span>stomach and face and his tongue </span>
  <span>exploding</span>
  <span> pain when his jaw set. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s stern brow crushed in on itself at the sight of him, visibly disgusted by the sight of his scarred body, the bruises and sickly undertones of his skin. He turned his murderous look on the doctor and then on Peter. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Dr. Hadley was just about to prescribe Stiles some silver nitrate for his tongue,” Peter mused, pleased by Derek’s anger. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Get on with it then,” Derek snapped and Hadley started to protest until Derek was in his space, stepping him against the wall. He said nothing threatening, not at all, and stood there, crowding the doctor until he gave in. Hadley muttered something about sending a message to the apothecary and Derek backed away from him. He yanked a blanket from the pile on the floor and roughly wrapped it around </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> shoulders. Being jostled aggravate</span>
  <span>d</span>
  <span> the sores and he winced, his body trying to curl in on itself to escape it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Despite how pathetic he felt, how ridiculous and childlike and ashamed, he begged Derek to make the pain stop – dear God just make it stop – even if he could not speak. </span>
  <span>He begged God. He begged for his father. Tears skated down his cheeks. The gentlest touch he had remembered feeling was once when Lydia Martin brushed a dandelion over his closed eyes. He thought about it when he laid down to sleep if he wasn’t so exhausted from the day that his mind switched off immediately. Derek Hale’s touch was like that</span>
  <span>, a breeze of skin, a touch that might not have been a touch but a film of warm air between flesh that could not come closer without meeting. Stiles hated crying in front of him. The pain didn’t care. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Leave</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Derek </span>
  <span>ordered.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Nephew, think about what you’re doing,” advised Peter and Derek tore around and </span>
  <em>
    <span>growled </span>
  </em>
  <span>at him. Stiles had heard the Hales’ deep-speech, the rumbling of their words when they were </span>
  <span>upset</span>
  <span> and he had known it was not a sound he could quite match himself, but this – this was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>growl</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Peter rolled his eyes, it was becoming a familiar mannerism of his, and he gestured Hadley out of the room. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe the price of</span>
  <span> speaking when it had been forbidden </span>
  <span>was to be devoured by whatever sort of demon Derek Hale was. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Derek dropped to one knee. </span><span>He cupped </span><span>Stiles’s</span> <span>jaw, his long</span> <span>fingers going behind his ear. </span><span>This was at touch as it was meant to be felt, something firm, commanding. </span></p><p>
  <span>“Close your eyes</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>As soon as Stiles closed them</span>
  <span>, the pain in his mouth began to slide away. He was leaning into Derek’s palm before he </span>
  <span>thought</span>
  <span> better of it, the hand clasping his blanket closed dropping to his lap and </span>
  <span>it slid</span>
  <span> off him as well. Frosty air made his bare shoulders shiver</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>Derek’s fingers hotly scorched his skin, made his chest heave. Sweat beaded on his forehead and on his collarbone, rolled in fat droplets down his sternum. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Swirls of color streaked the inside of his mind, made him </span>
  <span>floaty</span>
  <span>, distanced and he hadn’t the wherewithal to stop himself laughing. He did not feel Derek’s hand leave him, or he did, but at an immense delay. His eyes peeked open and Derek was staring at him and it made his </span>
  <span>giggling</span>
  <span> stretch into laughter, such that it hurt his stomach.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“W-what?”</span>
  <span> <br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re smiling,” Derek said gravely, a concept that must have been foreign to someone as taciturn as he was and Stiles doubled over with an unattractive snort. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter came through the door a moment later, his brow arched and demanded, “Derek Hale what in sweet Hell have you done to him?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“He was in pain,” Derek stammered, still watching Stiles as if he had broken him somehow and maybe he had. </span>
  
</p><p><span>“Ulcers from </span><em><span>stress</span></em><span>,” Peter fumed, “not a </span><em><span>shattered</span></em> <em><span>back</span></em><span>.” Mr. Hale closed the door and stepped quickly to the bed, his hands going to each of </span><span>Stiles’s</span><span> bouncing shoulders, “Can you hear me?”</span></p><p>
  <span>Stiles tried to nod</span>
  <span>; </span>
  <span>his cheeks were sore from wearing such a mad grin. Peter smiled wryly</span>
  <span> back at him</span>
  <span>. “Well, you aren’t in any pain now,” he sighed, “can’t feel a thing, can you?” He couldn’t, not even his own flesh and bones. “Alright, princess, lay back and try to sleep. It’ll wear off in a few hours.” He herded </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> to the middle of the bed and together he and Derek brought up the rest of sheets from the floor to cover him with. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>As they left Peter hissed to his nephew, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>You</span>
  </em>
  <span> can explain this to </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>. We’ll be </span>
  <em>
    <span>extremely</span>
  </em>
  <span> fortunate if this little stunt just now didm't cook his brains into jam.” </span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Offend In Every Way</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Stiles slept as if he been wide awake all of his life. Peaceful lulling dreams rocked him gently, a boat carrying him downstream. He drifted in and out of it for an eternit</span>
  <span>y.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A few times when he rose into half-sleep he heard a voice, reading bits of stories he had heard before. Sometimes there were fingers carding through his hair the way </span>
  <span>John </span>
  <span>used to do before putting him down for bed. When the hand withdrew, he mumbled for his father, or dreamed that he had. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p><span>When Stiles was</span> <span>six, he saw what lay beyond the Wall. Just passed the Barlow farm, there was a chink in the Wall where the mortar in the stacked cobbles had come away. He had peered through it, into dense green and there were things running through the brush, low and fast and smelling heady. They could have been anything, any sort of demons like the monsters in the stories and he should have been more afraid than he was. They darted away so quickly he caught only a glimpse of rushing shadows and he’d thought they were </span><span>skitty</span><span>, like the deer in the fields at dusk; </span><span>only </span><span>interested </span><span>in </span><span>keeping away. </span></p><p>
  <span>He didn’t understand why </span>
  <span>they</span>
  <span> bothered with traitors </span>
  <span>hanging on</span>
  <span> the Wall, why the ropes were said to come back mangled and blood stained. If they were animals like any other, did the </span>
  <span>Offering </span>
  <span>serve to keep them attracted to the village? Or was the harvest meant for something else, something reaching and dark?</span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When he truly came back, the fire was sparkling and the windows dim. A calloused hand gripped his own and his father was beaming at him. Stiles pushed himself to sit up, questions burgeoning on his lips, until he recalled where he was. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Seeing the line of his eye his father said, “Not bad, is it?” hand sweeping across the wicker wheelchair he sat it. “I tried to tell Mrs. Hale that I could get on without it, but there doesn’t seem to be a way of telling that woman </span>
  <span>‘</span>
  <span>no</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles shook his head in agreement, smiling small. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Her boy’s been here since before I arrived,” John whispered, jerking his head to the left to where Derek Hale was slumped in the rocking chair in the corner, breathing even with sleep. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Every muscle constricted at seeing him there, looking angry with all of Creation even while he slept. </span><span>Stiles</span> <span>recoiled when he remembered the magic that had drugged him</span><span>. John squeezed his h</span><span>and</span><span>. </span></p><p>
  <span>“Are they good people?” his father asked hopefully</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>Stiles could</span>
  <span>n’t </span>
  <span>tell him h</span>
  <span>e didn’t know</span>
  <span>. From what his father saw, they were protecting his son, even knowing what he was and at the risk of putting them at odds with Last Rest. John would not live forever, had said as much in his darker moments, addled with drink, and Stiles would be </span>
  <span>vulnerable</span>
  <span> without his father’s authority to </span>
  <span>protect</span>
  <span> him. John wanted people for him or like him and the Hales were more than he could have hoped for; </span>
  <span>if they were what they looked to be on the outside.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>John had not seen their thinly concealed secrets, had not seen the way Peter looked at Stiles; calculating as an owl listening for mice. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I think so</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>John smiled and let out a breath of relief, “Mrs. Hale says she intends to employ you for the term of their stay. She said she’s been impressed with your </span>
  <span>resilience</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles nodded grimly. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He was told he had slept for two days and that </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> herself had treated </span>
  <span>the sores speckling his tongue while he slumbered. When she offered the </span>
  <span>tailoring job </span>
  <span>to him properly she decided on four dollars a week </span>
  <span>as</span>
  <span> payment, an obscene amount of money that he could not fathom. He was to keep the room they had given him initially and she asked that he join them for dinner</span>
  <span> each night. T</span>
  <span>his was the only point he fought her on. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m the help, Mrs. Hale,” he said, “I</span>
  <span>t… </span>
  <span>ain’t</span>
  <span> decorum</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  <span>She recognized the phrase, he thought, and conceded. </span>
  
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The Hales were crueler to their clothes than even Miss Henrietta. </span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span> brought him </span>
  <span>mountains: gowns, trousers, socks, shirts, and so on, each day. And there was not a single offender among them, rather all five were culpable. Stiles learned the ways they destroyed their clothes before he learned to identify the garments by whom they belonged to. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> and Cora broke seams on gloves and trampled hems as if they forgot to pick up their skirts as they walked and Laura thrice cracked the boning of her corsets. Peter would occasionally lose buttons on his shirts and jackets and </span>
  <span>once </span>
  <span>his scarf looked to have a nasty run it with a pair of shears. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>But Derek Hale was the worst of them. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Stiles understood his station, understood what Mrs. Hale was showering payment </span><span>on </span><span>him to do, and now he did not think his compensation </span><span>was </span><span>so indecent, but there was a point at which he could no longer bend. By the end of his first week, pins stuck in his mouth, his </span><span>owly</span><span> sewing spectacles hanging from nose, his frustration got the better of him. He snatched the latest of Mr. Hale’s </span>shredded <span>shirts – the damage of which was so severe he had never seen its ilk – and stormed out into the hall. </span></p><p>
  <span>He pounded on Derek’s door a bit harder than was necessary</span>
  <span>. I</span>
  <span>t felt good. When it swung open Stiles thrust out the now rag, for what else could he possibly turn it into, and hissed, “This is </span>
  <em>
    <span>unacceptable</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s eyes divided between the ribbons of </span>
  <span>cloth</span>
  <span> and Stiles, but he said nothing. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Do you have any idea at all what it takes to make shirts like this</span>
  <span>?</span>
  <span> Do even care how much your mother spent on it?</span>
  <span>” Stiles went on, </span>
  <span>hellbent</span>
  <span> on making an example he hoped the entire household could hear. “Have you even the slightest bit of respect for the time that went into this? Into tailoring it? And now it’s worthless. I cannot mend things that you yourself have no love for. What would be the point? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Stop </span>
  </em>
  <span>wasting my time, you’re not a </span>
  <em>
    <span>child</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He may have pushed </span>
  <span>too far </span>
  <span>but could not reign in the cascade of words once they began falling. If he had had more sense</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> he would have walked off his anger in the garden or started on a less infuriating project. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Derek leaned on the door frame, arms </span><span>crossed,</span><span> and Stiles realized suddenly he was not wearing any shirt at all. His body was the only one that matched the eerie </span><span>physical </span><span>strength of his family. He was</span> <span>built like a </span><span>carthorse</span><span>, all sinew peppered with coarse, dark hair. Stiles swallow</span><span>ed</span><span> hard, hard enough to swallow his own tongue, and was glad of the kerchief tied to his brow for mopping up the abrupt spring of perspiration. </span></p><p>
  <span>“You’re a tailor,” Derek said to him, smirking. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m a tailor, not a </span>
  <em>
    <span>resurrectionist</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yelling at your employer i</span>
  <span>sn’</span>
  <span>t very professional.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles leveled a finger at him, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>You</span>
  </em>
  <span> are not my employer. Your mother is. And if I am forced to go to her over this </span>
  <em>
    <span>I will</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s brow rose to his hair</span>
  <span>line</span>
  <span>. “You’re going to </span>
  <span>tell on me</span>
  <span>?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles chuckled dryly, “I understand that I am some sort of pet to you people. I don’t pry into your lives, I don’t ask questions you wouldn’t want anyone asking, and I </span>
  <em>
    <span>could</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>All I want is to be able to do my work and you are keeping me even from that, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mr. Hale</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Fairly certain he had gotten his point across, Stiles turned on his heel and stomped back to his room. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles planted his hands on his knees to catch his breath as it blew away from him in steamy clouds. The constant stream of garments</span>
  <span> and household items</span>
  <span> kept him too busy to make the long walk to his father’s house most days, but he was able to get away from his stuffy little room occasionally to go strolling or, in this case, running along the edges of the Hubbard’s property. It was suffocating to be closed up in the manor all day and he missed the snow crunching under foot and the sharp, clear air of the outdoors. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It was too late in winter to go </span>
  <span>foraging through the woods</span>
  <span>, so he </span>
  <span>made do</span>
  <span> wandering and turning over rocks to see what might be hiding under them. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The black dog made itself visible some days, like this one, though Stiles could feel that it was always near, even if it </span>
  <span>hid</span>
  <span> itself in the pines. They ran together, the dog far out pacing him each time he darted and when it got too far ahead he would change direction suddenly until it came bounding back, kicking up drifts in its wake, it’s fur caked in whit</span>
  <span>e</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles climbed </span>
  <span>a cluster of </span>
  <span>boulder</span>
  <span>s </span>
  <span>and sucked in breath, though it stung</span>
  <span>. He crowed </span>
  <span>like Scott had that night on the Wall. In the distance, the dog’s ears perked and it jumped up in a spray of powder</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He thought sometimes </span>
  <span>about</span>
  <span> bringing scraps with him to try luring </span>
  <span>it closer</span>
  <span>, but it did</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t seem right. Whether it </span>
  <span>came from </span>
  <span>the forest or fled from a house, it was wild now and Stiles could not bring himself to take that away from it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles let his eyes fall closed and he </span>
  <span>breathed</span>
  <span> the scent of the winter woods into himself. </span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Effect & Cause</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Halfway up the bowling green of the Manor, the belfry began tolling. Stiles turned to the sound, toward the town and he could just make out the carillon, its iron bells rocking to and fro, jarring the winter silence. He’d heard the chime of warning bells once before and his blood ran blue and frigid. He had heard them the last time the Offering was insufficient, when the harvest had been paltry; bad rain, blight spreading among the squashes. His wailing filled the cellar, his parents holding them between them, shielding him from the doors and his mother cooing to him, pleading with him to be silent.  </p><p><em> Shh </em> <em> , my little mischief, please, be still for Mama, please, be still. </em> </p><p>Had he thought there wouldn’t be retribution? The last time the Wall was breached, it was the randomness of fate that destroyed the offerings and Last Rest had scraped by to summer living on rations and losing many to illness or frost. But this was worse; the livestock and crops had been in good health and plentiful under sign of Doe. Whatever was salvageable had been given to the Murk, but it would have been ugly, dirty.  </p><p><em> I love you. </em> </p><p>If he were not a coward, he would throw himself to the Reapers and his blood might appease Them; it was because of him Fox was stronger with the turn of each cycle. But Stiles <em> was </em> a coward, too selfish to die that way, torn in half and devoured. He started moving, jerkily to the house, stumbling in the snow. He didn’t know where the cellar was, his heart choked, and he threw himself at the main doors only to bounce off of them. He frantically jiggled the handle. They were already locked, locked even though whoever had done it must have seen him just down the slope.  </p><p>He sprinted around the side of the house and was met with another locked door and his hands were in his hair, his blood roaring. He kicked the jamb with a snarl. Panic crept through his muscles and he willed it away; fear was death. He needed to hide himself some place, any place.  </p><p>The shed.  </p><p>Every sense he had screamed at him, thrashed against him, beseeching him to find anywhere else, not there, not that small, dark place. He dashed to it, got ahold of the handle and the world bowed and there was only the ramshackle door, bleached under years of sun, bleached white as bone.  </p><p><em> Close your eyes. </em> </p><p>He scrunched shut his eyes and brought the door in behind him. There were cold iron fittings and bolts and gardening tools swinging from racks or under his hands and cobwebs stuck in his hair, but he kept his eyes from looking. He stood there in the stillness, every part of him clenched, fighting for control over his racing mind; the broom cupboard, musty and close and rocks banging off its sides and creeping, slithering, crawling things under his clothes.  </p><p>His hands when to his belly, clutching it, guarding it, keeping it from sending up vomit.  </p><p>Steps in the snow, coming fast, reckless. His own footprints would be there, leading here, leading to this fucking shed. The door creaked, its hinges too rusted and frozen to behave. Stiles’s hands clapped over his ears. The wraith on the other side snarled and the door flew off the shed with a booming rend that shook the equipment hung on its walls, some of it clattering down around Stiles’s feet.  </p><p>He couldn’t make a sound when it grabbed him and spun him around – “Stiles!” </p><p>A gasp shook out of him to find Derek there, tugging his hand, pulling him. They ran.  </p><p>“It’s locked,” Stiles wheezed when they came to the side door. Derek tried the handle anyway; it didn’t budge. He growled again, as he had before, a low dangerous sound, his eyes flitting, hunting for another way. He pushed Stiles back behind him and kicked the handle with enough force to shatter the panes. The door swung listlessly inward.  </p><p>“We can’t leave it like that!” Stiles cried. </p><p>“It won’t matter,” Derek barked back. He hauled Stiles up the grand staircase rather than across the ground floor in search of the cellar door. Stiles tried to protest, to make him stop and go back, but Derek ignored him. Suddenly they were dashing into Hales’ rooms. Stiles did not have time to make sense of what he saw there. The Hales were not hunkered down in the cellar with the Mayor as they should have been, but in the sitting room, with all furniture shoved to the walls and hearth blazing high.  </p><p>“Stiles, thank God,” Thalia said, pulling him into her bosom. </p><p>“What’s happening?”</p><p>“Are you hurt?” she demanded, checking him over and lifting his chin.  </p><p>“He’s fine,” Derek spat and took Stiles from her, positioned him behind the semi-circle the Hales had formed and Stiles tore away from him.  </p><p>“<em> Stop dragging me like a child,” </em> came out of him all vinegar and fear, “What are you all doing?! We need to get below ground!” </p><p>“We’re safer up here,” Thalia assured him. </p><p>“That is, of course, a relative term,” Peter tacked on and his sister cut a glare at him.  </p><p>“Stiles, stay behind my son,” urged Thalia. They were lunatics, all of them, but what stopped Stiles fleeing back down the stairs, was the magic Derek had taken away all of his pain with. He couldn't trust in them, but he could trust in that, there was more under their skin than bone. Derek had ripped apart the shed and broken in a door without an ounce of his energy spent and he was looking at Stiles like he was made of steel and determined and – and Stiles couldn’t catch his breath.  </p><p>He allowed Derek to stand in front of him. He wore only an undershirt, one with a rip in the shoulder and briars clinging to it and through the thin linen was a black threefold spiral tattoo between his shoulder blades. Stiles held back his hand from touching it, from touching Derek’s arms or the dimples of his lower back. All of the Hales cramped into a corner like this, it built weirdness into the space; his need to run his hands over anything within reach amplified, to smell and taste and he –  </p><p>Derek’s hand reached back and took his. The man was looking at him, over one shoulder, not asking or telling; existing. A BANG echoed off the walls and made the floor shake.  </p><p>Stiles twined his fingers into Derek Hale’s. </p><p> </p><p>In school, they were taught that their ancestors who'd built the Wall were some of the first people after the extinction age. There had been lesions in the earth, spilling fire and ash that covered Creation. When the Earth began to grow again, and the air was sweet, their people came here to the valley that now harbored Last Rest and Hollow Tree and Fever Hill and Two Oaks and all the other towns here on the edge of the world. </p><p>Their labor colony built the Wall from sea to sea and many died during its construction. It held out the Murk. There may have been thousands of kinds of creatures dwelling there and they were seen from time to time and some tried to catalogue them, but they rarely came close enough for study.  </p><p>Their teacher had a large roll of parchment that she hung from the chalk board, faded and yellowed. The creatures of the Murk were solitary, of no consequence to any that lived well, minded their chores and were Godly. On the teacher’s parchment was the only darkness that ever left the trees to torment mortals or to exact retribution. They could go generations without being seen; until the year of the squash blight Stiles’s grandmother was the only one left alive to have seen one.  </p><p>Before she died, she would tell stories to Stiles warning against their coming, that a splash of lamb’s blood across the door would keep them away or a sprinkle of holy water. Her story would change and faded the more years passed her by. Even if the details were lost to her, she would still wake in the night shrieking that the Harvestmen were coming for her.  </p><p> </p><p>“Don’t look them in the eye,” Peter muttered, falling to one knee. Each of them did, tightly packed together, Derek bringing Stiles down with him and Stiles forced his eyes to the rug. His shocking heart rate gagged him, tunneled his vision. His grandmother’s gnarled hands, hands like tree roots, were in his mind, folded over one another, her voice like a clatter of wood and so was his school teacher’s parchment, the charcoal-smear drawing the Harvestman.  </p><p>Derek’s hand tightened on his. </p><p>Screams faintly called out from the bottom floor and Stiles eyes shut against the thing on the stairs, coming into the room, bellowing breath. The temperature, even so close to Derek, to Cora and Peter and the fire, careened and there was frost in the air, touching and settling on his skin and in his hair.  </p><p>The Harvestman scraped around the room on what sounded like more than two legs, more than four. It felled furniture and smashed glass, anything unfortunate enough to be in its path was destroyed until it was hovering above them.  </p><p>Tears skated down Stiles’s nose, but he was quiet, choking himself to hold down his scream. Were they invisible? Were the Hales so powerful they could conceal themselves from Evil? Before he could comfort himself with the notion, no matter how childish, something like twigs were fondling his hair, rancid, freezing breath pouring down. <em>The spiders in the broom cupboard, skittering up his pant leg, under his shirt, biting and crawling with nowhere to go.</em> <em>Their legs brushing behind his ears. </em> </p><p>One of the thin feelers caressed his cheek and he could not hold it in, could not stand it another second. He opened his mouth to scream, lurching back, but not a sound made it out of him because Derek was there, hand slapped over his mouth, muffling the scream. Derek pinned Stiles’s limbs to his sides and Peter’s back was ahead of him though his hadn’t seen him move.  </p><p>Derek’s lips were at his ear whispering and shouting all at once, “<em> Yo </em> <em> u’re going to get us killed </em> <em> !” </em> Peter was mumbling something, maybe another language, but it was quick and repeating like a chant or what the Lost Language of the Good Book might have sounded like. Cora had shuffled to their side, her arm joining her brother’s across Stiles’s middle and Thalia as well, and Laura, murmured along with her uncle.  </p><p> </p><p><em> They are close, his father </em> <em> utters </em> <em> strangled sounds and h </em> <em> e’s holding </em> <em> Stiles’s </em> <em> arm too tight. His mother is weeping </em> <em> . Her tears fall </em> <em> into his ha </em> <em> ir; she’s </em> <em> muttering, whispering to him and he cannot stop crying because he is too </em> <em> young </em> <em> to understand </em> <em> why he’s afraid </em> <em> .  </em> </p><p> </p><p>The Harvestman was hideous. </p><p>Derek’s nose nudged into his throat, huffing and rubbing and blowing warm breath across his scalp. He told Stiles under that breath that he was safe, that he was an innocent and the Harvestmen didn't harvest innocents.  </p><p> </p><p>The creature left and the coldness it brought, left with it. For a long while, none of them moved away, their collective ragged breathing cacophonous. Peter fell back onto his rear from the crouch he had been tucked in and rubbed his face and Stiles had never seen him so out of sorts. Thalia crawled to her brother and put her arm around his shoulders; they leaned into each other, their heads pressed. </p><p>Derek dropped his hand from Stiles’s mouth and held him to his chest, forehead bent on Stiles’s shoulder. But Stiles could not find or feel relief, no, he could not and he shouted, “<em> Why?! </em> ” and ripped against Derek’s clasped arms, screaming the word again and he was still crying, crying openly. He had seen a man <em> torn in half </em> on the road to his house the last time They had come; torn apart! Guts and red and moony eyes and John had tried to sweep him up before he saw it, but he had, and it was in his dreams and sometimes that man was Scott or himself. He had been held down beneath the same monster that had killed that man and it had passed him over, even after disobeying the Hales, and he knew there were bodies in the streets of Last Rest that had been judged the way he should have been.  </p><p>Thalia was before him, cupping his face, “It’s ok, you’re safe.” </p><p>He scrambled to his feet and to the middle of the room staring out at the landing, the doors hanging from hinges and ruined chandelier below. Fox was snick, snicking in the hall, pressing to the walls as it surveyed.  </p><p>“Why!” Stiles screamed at them, at Fox and the Hales and the Harvestmen. He wasn’t innocent; he was cruel and cowardly, a devil in human clothes that murdered his own mother, his best friend and yet he <em> lived </em>. </p><p>“Stiles, please, calm down,” pleaded Thalia.  </p><p>“He thinks it should have taken him,” said Peter, rising from the floor. He did not come too close, though he did pad forward saying, “You are not what they've told you, you're-,” </p><p>“<em> Peter </em>,” Thalia warned.  </p><p>He turned his annoyed disbelief on his sister and said, “It is cruel what they’ve done to him Thalia and it is cruel that you’ve hid it from him this long.”  </p><p>“Shut <em>up</em>!” Stiles cried, not now, he could not swallow being spoken about this way, like he were a dog to them, not again, “I am right <em>fucking</em> here!” The start wedged into Peter’s face was worth his outburst. “Tell me why It didn’t take me; why didn’t It take <em>any of you</em>? You knew they were coming, you knew how to protect yourselves and you helped <em>no one </em>in this house! If They discovered the cellar then everyone inside is <em>dead</em> and that blood is on <em>your hands!” </em> </p><p>“The Harvestmen don’t harm innocents,” Cora piped up out of what looked to be more irritation than empathy.  </p><p>Stiles took a step and jammed a finger at himself, “<em> I am not innocent. I </em> killed <em> my mother. I killed Scott McCall. I let a married man fuck me. I should be a corpse in the </em> <em> road!” </em>  </p><p>“You base your sense of right and wrong off of the constructs of men,” Peter said coolly. He made a vague gesture with his hands and said, “They've forgotten the Land. But <em> you </em> – you can hear the Fox, can’t you?”  </p><p>Stiles stared at him, hemorrhaging air.  </p><p>“I thought so,” Peter said, smugness settling on him, “It speaks to you; you can see it from the corner of your eye sometimes. It’s here, now, even as we speak, is it not?” </p><p>It was. It bristled.  </p><p>“You what?” mused Peter, “Thought you had imagined it? Thought it was your anger come to bare? Why do you think you feel strangely in a house, Stiles? You were wilder as a child, weren’t you, before they beat it out of you? You are so certain the Harvestman should have taken you and if you lived by these people’s rules, you would have tried to give yourself to Them, but you went to ground instead. You would chew through your own leg to escape a cage, cut a man’s throat, tell me I’m wrong.”  </p><p>“I <em> wouldn’t </em>,” Stiles croaked, chin trembling.  </p><p>“You <em> would </em>. Those scars on your knuckles are not a product of labor; they caged you once, maybe more than once, and you broke your own fingers trying to get away.”  </p><p>Stiles hands balled into fists, “I was a <em> child </em>,” he insisted, but Peter simply shook his head.  </p><p>“No, a <em> child </em> gives up, sits down, cries for mother but not you.” </p><p>“<em> Enough </em>,” growled Derek. He had risen without Stiles seeing and he was a force of anger, his head tipped down in aggression at his uncle.  </p><p>“Oh, please,” sighed Peter, “If I am upsetting him, he should be upset. These <em> people </em> did this to him and he should be overcome with anger. Who are they? Greedy little humans quibbling over their piety?” </p><p>“Stop pretending this is about what’s best for him,” spat Laura, standing in a whirl of her skirts.  </p><p>“Child, if you would for one moment  arrest your insatiable high-mindedness you might come to realize that what is best for this family might also be best for Stiles,” Peter retorted. By the time Peter turned back to Stiles, Stiles was already gone, running through the house, through the snow.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Good To Me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He had not been afraid of the Harvestmen the last time they came over the Wall. He had been afraid of the cellar. He had fought against his parents, mad with terror, trapped under the house. He hadn't been able to name the fear, could not really understand what it meant. They came again and he had stood outside of the shed, having been taught to hide, that he was not fast enough to get away and he could not know which was worse. Stealing away, cornered or becoming that man, mauled on the road.</span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He ran and ran through the snowy dervishes. There was blood in the snow, here and there, bodies splayed out with twisted broken limbs at the corners of his vision but he pushed on, refusing to look. Fog and smoke obscured the trampled back roads. Something was burning and horses were braying, screaming so loud </span>
  <span>Stiles‘s</span>
  <span> ears shudder</span>
  <span>ed</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He slipped on the ice outside his father's garden gate, scraped his chin in his madness to right himself and get to the door. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“DAD!” he yelled, wild eyes tearing apart the empty house. There hadn’t been any wheel tracks in the snow; John hadn’t made it to the storm doors. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stiles?” came a tentative reply, Melissa’s, not his fathers and then </span>
  <span>–</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re here!” John cried out and Stiles shoved through the door </span>
  <span>of his mother’s old den</span>
  <span> to</span>
  <span> find them crouched together in the far corner, a blanket wrapped around his father‘s shoulders against the wintry drop that follow</span>
  <span>ed</span>
  <span> the Harvestmen through Last Rest.  Stiles fell into his father’s arms, tears springing again from his eyes and John kissed his hair and held him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stiles, Stiles,” his father murmured tightly, sweeping hair from his forehead, “Stiles, you can’t stay here.” His voice was tight, strangled, terrified. “You have to go, they can’t </span>
  <span>– </span>
  <span>they can’t find you here.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to run,” Melissa told him soberly, “they’ll hang you.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>John took his son’s face in both hands, “We will be fine, but you have to get away from here, do you understand?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Please, </span>
  <span>D</span>
  <span>ad, please don’t-,” but he didn’t know what he was begging for, only that he couldn’t move, was too petrified to stand.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>John shook him hard, “I love you, I love you son, but I can’t watch you hang, I can’t do that, RUN</span>
  <span> AWAY</span>
  <span>!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He and Melissa pushed Stiles away, pushed him to stand and Stiles stood there no longer a young man but a child, tears and snot streaking his face and freezing as they fell. His father’s shattered expression begged silently for him to go when he couldn’t find the words to demand it</span>
  <span> again</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>So, Stiles backed away and sprinted from the</span>
  <span> house.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>With no coat, he put shaking arms around himself as he sat on a log. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He could spare his father watching his corpse swing if he froze to death and the thought made Fox chortle. Maybe It thought he would never do such a thing, he was too cowardly, and if only to prove It wrong he considered doing just that. They said dying in the cold was like falling asleep and this was the sort of death that did not frighten him as much as burial or a pyre. He could grow icy and blue and his thoughts would lose Peter Hale and Fox and the stresses that had burnt holes in his tongue. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A great coat, its wool dyed ebony and smelling sweetly of lemons and rosemary and mint dropped over his shoulders and the log </span>
  <span>groaned</span>
  <span> when Derek Hale </span>
  <span>sat</span>
  <span> beside him. The winter had sunk so far into his marrow that he did not scare at Hale’s sudden appearance. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“L-leave me-e al-one,” Stiles stammered, but his hands betrayed him, working without him to pull the coat tighter around his body. In the winter sun, steam lifted off of Derek’s arms and chest and Stiles did not want to know how he could be so warm it altered the air around him. He did not want to know how he could relieve pain or why the Reaper had passed over them all. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re leaving,” Derek said to him, eyes ensnared elsewhere in the barren tangle of trunks and vines.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles snorted miserably, unable to understand or care why Derek was telling him this. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>re coming with us.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“N-no I’m not.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek peered down at him, “You can hate me,” he said, eyes going into Stiles as if he was not looking at any part of him outwardly visible, “but you’re coming.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you h-hear a word of </span>
  <span>wh</span>
  <span>-at I said?” Stiles hissed, “I’ve murdered two </span>
  <span>peo-ple</span>
  <span>; I’m – I’m,” </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m a Fox slut and I wanted it.</span>
  </em>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you hear anything Peter said?” Derek countered, “Whatever you did,” he said blandly, casting eyes on the churned-up snow, “you haven’t told us all of it and you wouldn’t have said what you did if you weren’t so biased against yourself.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The cold was turning the scars on his hands plum colored and he hated them. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I can take it away,” Derek muttered, the unspoken </span>
  <em>
    <span>take away your pain</span>
  </em>
  <span> louder than what came </span>
  <span>out of</span>
  <span> his mouth. Stiles considered it and being so mindless was its own sort of prison, but he knew he would never leave Last Rest of his own accord. He could never abandon his father here, or his mother. And for once, Fox did not mock him. It may have been quietly curled up some place far away and hidden if only to ensure he made the right choice </span>
  <span>to</span>
  <span> go to ground as Mr. Hale had said. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t </span>
  <span>wa-nt</span>
  <span> to </span>
  <span>fff</span>
  <span>-eel anything,” Stiles told him and Derek nodded. He let his eyes </span>
  <span>fall</span>
  <span> closed and Derek’s palm pressed to his cheek</span>
  <span>. S</span>
  <span>nakes of soreness and aching and fear slithered away from him, and he melted into Derek’s side and Derek chuffed into his hair. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He was aware of himself, of the smears of movement, being dressed warmly and helped to a waiting coach. It could have been a dream and he convinced himself it was because he would never do these things. But that was a lie too. When it mattered, Fox always won out and preserved him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He could not know what he would have done without Its influence. Died unremarkably, perhaps from wounds or by musket shot. He did die, he thought, a part of him went no further than the border of his town and stood under the last tree at the edge of Barlow farm watching the horses pass, snow falling all around. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Good morning!” came a shrill greeting</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles cracked open his lids and was blinded by the searing light of the winter sun. He squinted out the carriage window to find</span>
  <span> it stopped. He was </span>
  <span>the only one left in the cabin. Cora Hale was leaned on the sill, offering him a tin cup of coffee, billowing steam and losing heat quickly. He took it from her, careful not to spill, and let it bring some life back into fingers that were more icicles than fingers. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What day is it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Today,” she chirped, “You’ve been asleep since yesterday.” She was no longer draped in pretty clothes </span>
  <span>and</span>
  <span> pearls. Her finery was traded for practical garments, leather and shearling lined snow clothes, </span>
  <span>like a real trapper </span>
  <span>with all of her hair bundled up in a rabbit pelt hat. Stiles found himself wearing something similar, his knees covered by a bear skin. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Sipping his coffee, bitter and unsweetened, he asked, “Where?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Couldn’t say,” Cora shrugged, “Some place on the road. Mr. Boyd is our navigator.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mayor Hubbard’s housekeeper?” he implored, fretting over how many others the Hales had abducted without his knowing. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Vernon was filling in on the Mayor’s staff and his wife too</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>Mother sent me to fetch you for breakfast. We’ve sausages and pork belly frying, beans, cheese and bread.” And with that she danced away from the coach, humming a skipping tune. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles found his legs unsure under him, still wobbly from the torpor of Derek Hale’s magic. On the other side of the snow packed road a fire was roaring and </span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span> and Boyd and a blond woman stood with the Hales around it, plates in hands. </span>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> eyes brightened when she saw him. She, like her daughter, wore thick winter trousers and a coat, her raven locks woven into a neat plait. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“How are you feeling?” she asked, when he had joined their circle. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” he said, because he had no other answer, true or not. Until Derek was stomping back to the encampment, Stiles had not noticed his absence. Clumps of snow were matted to him and stuck in his beard; </span>
  <span>the land was so chilled </span>
  <span>not even his high temperature was able to melt it. He threw down an armful of logs and sticks, easily a hundred pounds worth like it were a handful of straw to him. </span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span> handed him a cup and – Stiles averted his gaze as they rubbed their cheeks together like two friendly barn cats. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Eyeing him </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> said, “Forgive them, our family has some quirks.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>All eyes were on him, Peter, smirking as seemed his default expression, and Cora sniggering with Laura and Derek – Stiles could not guess his thoughts, </span>
  <span>his face was so unreadable</span>
  <span>. Stiles asked, “Is it common in Fever Hill?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A spurt of Cora’s laughter made him flush. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Just in our family.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He drank some coffe</span>
  <span>e </span>
  <span>to give himself something to do while being ridiculed for a reason that was annoyingly hidden from him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Where are your manners, </span>
  <em>
    <span>brother mine</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” chided Cora, “Stiles is our guest.” Derek snorted at her, a note of warning in </span>
  <span>his</span>
  <span> baritone. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Ignore my children,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> said, “They're brutes. We're expected to act a certain way when traveling on business and when that business is done…,” she waved at Cora and her out-stuck tongue.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t decide against your outpost because of – what happened?”</span>
  
</p><p><span>She swapped a glance with Peter, before saying, “Yes and no. We have our values, as I told the Mayor, and those values are strongly opposed to your treatment. If not you, who would they blame next for their plight? An outsider trading company perhaps? Or the outsiders operating it? Mayor Hubbard liked the idea of new industry, but if there was public outcry against it?</span> <span>I </span><span>have</span><span> very little faith he would rise to the challenge of protecting our assets, let alone our wellbeing.” </span></p><p>
  <span>“And… what will happen to me?” he asked, hating the uncertainty, the dependence, in his voice. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever you decide,” she told him placidly, “You </span>
  <span>can</span>
  <span> stay with us, we’ve more than enough space for you or you may leave us in the next town. Although, I would be sad to see you go and… I know I wouldn't be the only one.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Why don’t you care what I am?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I care </span>
  <em>
    <span>immensely</span>
  </em>
  <span> what you are,” she said, “immensely, Stiles. If you mean, why don’t I hate you for it? That</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>s because I know what it is to be chastised for something that's totally out of my control. You are not unlucky because of when you were born, you'</span>
  <span>re unlucky to have been born amongst such </span>
  <span>people</span>
  <span>. And you</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>re free now. </span>
  <span>T</span>
  <span>ry to see yourself as I do while you're with us. You are different and clever and important.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> leaned into his space and rubbed her cheek to his, nuzzling her nose behind his ear and he was stiff, but the sensation was not unpleasant. She whispered to him, “You'</span>
  <span>re a Hale, if you want to be one.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The last time he</span>
  <span> w</span>
  <span>iped tears from his eyes over fleeing and leaving his father was when the caravan of coaches started up again. If the Hale children could tell, they said nothing about it, sparing him that at least. He swore to himself he would</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t cry over it ever again. His father would</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t have </span>
  <span>wanted it.</span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. I'm Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>A rut in the road shook the cabin enough to jostle him awake. On the adjacent bench, Laura and Cora were tangled together in a web of blankets and furs, Cora’s head resting on her sister’s chest as if they were very young. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Stiles found himself similarly entrenched into Derek’s </span><span>side;</span><span> a heavy arm curled around his back. He did</span><span>n’</span><span>t remember arranging himself this way; before he had nodded off, Derek was on the other side of the bench, propped against the far window and already asleep. Hale was solid under him, something to steady him as the wagon wheels bumped along the uneven ground, and under their covers was sweltering. He hadn’t been so warm in two days –</span> <span>he had also never slept </span><span>next </span><span>to another man </span><span>besides </span><span>his father. </span></p><p>
  <span>He cheeks were fiery </span>
  <span>with </span>
  <span>imposition, accidental or not, and he carefully worked to extract himself and retreat back to the window when Derek’s arm tightened on him. The sensation sent a thrum down </span>
  <span>his length</span>
  <span>, one so powerful and unexpected his breath hitched. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop squirming,” Derek’s voice came from somewhere above him, irritated at being roused, irritated as if this were a normal thing and Stiles were bothering him purposefully. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr. Hale</span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span>,”</span>
  
</p><p><span>He</span><span> grunted at what Stiles had to assume was </span><span>hearing himself and ‘mister’ in close association</span><span>.</span> <span>He thought he could make out the curve of Derek’s jaw, the arrow-like points of his nostrils</span><span>; things that were now </span><span>familiar</span><span> to him. But his scent had changed.</span> <span>The Hales’</span><span> vernal smell was overridden by an </span><span>oakier</span><span>, muskier scent; one that was</span> <span>thick as smoke when Stiles breathed it in. </span></p><p>
  <span>The </span>
  <span>fragrance</span>
  <span> lit up his chest</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s thumb ran over the bottom of his chin. It swiped back and forth and there was something circling in </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span>’s</span>
  <span> mind he meant to say, but it was gone quickly, leaving his mouth </span>
  <span>agape</span>
  <span>, a thrill spiking through his core to his groin. The pad of Derek’s thumb grazed </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> bottom lip, just barely, more the thought of a touch without being one. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He took his hand away</span>
  <span>; let </span>
  <span>out a frustrated grumble when he did. Stiles was rigid, his mouth dry, and – he wanted. He had wanted David in a naïve way, one he had</span>
  <span>n’t thought to </span>
  <span>examine and after being so empty, empty as the day his mother died, he hadn’t thought there was a part of him left able to want what might leave him. He told himself it was</span>
  <span>n’t real. </span>
  <span>Fox </span>
  <span>crazed men. It made them lustful</span>
  <span>, it made them dull if they knew better.  </span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>If Derek Hale wanted him, it was only to bend him over a table to fuck him without having to see his face, without having to kiss him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p><span>The Hale girls tore up the snow as they wrestled and Stiles watched with wide eyes. They had been antsy in the carriage, snipping words at each other and adjusting and moving constantly until </span><span>Thalia</span><span> ordered the caravan to a stop so each of them could stretch their legs. The breaks they took</span> <span>seemed frequent, more frequent than Stiles would have imagined, though he</span><span>’d never walked further than the grove beyond Shack’s pond, let alone set foot in a carriage</span><span>. But he welcomed any distraction</span> <span>from himself and his selfishness and the worried image of his father </span><span>propped up in</span><span> his bed. </span></p><p>
  <span>He had never seen two women their ages grapple in the dirt and snow the way the sisters did. Children, yes, even the occasional drunken, playful brawl</span>
  <span>, but never like this</span>
  <span>. Cora shrieked as Laura got hands under her and flipped her in the air; she came flailing back face-down </span>
  <span>in </span>
  <span>an arch that ended in a bank of snow.</span>
  <span> T</span>
  <span>he others cheered them on</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you like a turn?” and Stiles flinched, at Peter’s voice. </span>
  
</p><p><span>“No,” Stiles told him, because</span> <span>cowing away from the suggestion, wouldn't have passed with Peter Hale. </span><span>Peter wanted him to speak only to make him feel ridiculous. </span></p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Are they offending your fine sensibilities?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“If this is a ploy to rub yourself on me, it's weak</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>He leaned in, smelling like firewood and smoke, “If I wanted you, I would</span>
  <span>n’t have to trick you into it</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“If you wanted me</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> I would throw myself down a well</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter’s snapped his teeth at </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> shoulder before sauntering away. I</span>
  <span>ndecency may have been the point</span>
  <span>. Stiles stared into </span>
  <span>his coffee</span>
  <span>. If </span>
  <span>being spoken to and talking this way </span>
  <span>was marked red in his mind, even as it was happening, then why </span>
  <span>wasn’t</span>
  <span> the reflection in his cup more neutral or </span>
  <span>angry</span>
  <span>? </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His face changed and he went back to the coach to sit until they began moving again. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Animals never </span>
  <span>came</span>
  <span> too close to the Wall. </span>
  <span>H</span>
  <span>orses had to be specially trained, walked along it with blinders for weeks until they were no longer </span>
  <span>afraid</span>
  <span>. There were no birds to sing perched at its top and no rodents, not even the rats were inclined to scratch around it </span>
  <span>for </span>
  <span>crumbs. People would say they could feel the presence of it as well, a foreboding that made a deep, dark bowl in the pit of their stomach. Stiles felt something too when he would walk along it and peer through the loose stones. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Other people never said it was dread but they acted like it was</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Dread was seeing David </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span> in the streets. It was </span>
  <span>the horrible seconds before a belt whipping</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He had never quite been able to call the feeling, standing in the linear shadow, by the same name. Fear of it had come later, but when he was too young, too stupid to know better, he could</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t call it dread. The Murk was something to be aware of. It forced itself </span>
  <span>on whoever was </span>
  <span>drawn in too close. It existed, as did all things, but it was awake and breathing. Not dreadful, not unless it was given a reason to be. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He did not know if he was angry with it. The </span>
  <span>Murk</span>
  <span> was </span>
  <span>where the Four dwelt </span>
  <span>and it was the Four that made him what he was. They had taken so much, and he supposed he could hate the place that sustained them, but had They and the </span>
  <span>Murk</span>
  <span> not given back some of what they </span>
  <span>took</span>
  <span>? </span>
  
</p><p><span>He chewed on his cuticles, pulling away winter</span><span>-</span><span>dry</span> <span>skin. The carriage bumped </span><span>along,</span><span> and the Hale girls played a card game on the bench</span><span>. </span><span>Stiles’s</span><span> forehead pressed to the chilled </span><span>windowpane</span><span>. It had given him a gift, once, maybe more than once and maybe the Hales were a gift he had yet to fully </span><span>understand</span><span>. But once, for all of his time spent scrubbing floors, for the occasional cup pelted at him by an angry drunk, for the sad look in his father’s eyes, the </span><span>Murk</span><span> had given him</span><span> an omen</span><span>. </span></p><p>
  <span>He had seen his mother standing in the pinewood near to his bedroom window, her form, draped in all white but blurred by the glass panes. She had been bright as a star despite the midnight hour, her hand reaching out into the gloom, bidding h</span>
  <span>im</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span> He had crept from the house, tears stinging in his eyes and sprinted through the forest, tearing his night clothes </span>
  <span>and scraping his elbows</span>
  <span>. When he reached the clearing, there was no trace of Claudia, but a beast, covered in dark fur. Glowing, cerulean eyes watched him in from the thicket, the Wall a towering black gate with no door. He was too young to be frightened, he thought</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>H</span>
  <span>e knew </span>
  <span>it was </span>
  <span>a creature from beyond the Wall. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Its breath was dewy in the light of the moon. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He woke in his bed unable to remember when he had laid down to sleep. That was the way of dreams, he had thought; there was no beginning and no end. He would have continued to think it only a good dream until he found that his feet were muddy. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>But there were no muddied footprints leading to his bed or in the house. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He never again awoke curled up to Derek Hale’s side. He saw very little of Derek at all</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Passive Manipulation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“You said you've lived in Last Rest all of your life?” asked Miss Laura, abruptly, breaking a silence of hours. Stiles did not immediately recognize it was he she was speaking to and his thoughts had gotten away from him while he watched the whited-out country race by. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes."</span>
  <span> <br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>She squinted, “You're certain?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek grunted at her in warning, earning himself an eye roll. </span>
  <span> <br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why wouldn’t I be?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span> The sound Derek had made was one he recognized, so often did </span>
  <span>he </span>
  <span>emit such sounds of irritation, but in this context Stiles </span>
  <span>wasn’t sure what it meant</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You are… are you dreaming?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A</span>
  <span>t this Derek vocalized, saying her name harshly. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you mean?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“How can you be sure if you’re awake, when you dream in such colors?” A pill of blood dribbled down from her nose and Stiles touched his own lip to find that the pads of his fingers came away </span>
  <span>red</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span> “Do I dream blood?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles gasped awake, struggling to breathe, as if he were plunged below frigid waters and the cabin was full of night and rumbling and he struck out for the latch on the door. The coach was not moving fast, not fast enough for him to break a bone, but falling from it and into the snow punched the</span>
  <span> rare</span>
  <span> air from his lungs. Shouting rose up and horses whinnied and the caravan of stages came to a grinding halt of noise and creaking wood. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> hands made fists in the snow, his chest heaving until he vomited, sweat on his chest</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stiles!” screeched </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> Hale. Her boots were in the knee-deep snow behind him, crashing through it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He knew he was awake, he knew it, the ground was burning with cold and was solid under him and his bile smelled so strongly – he was awake. But, a moment ago he had not been and it had been so real.</span>
  <span> He couldn’t remember going to sleep.</span>
  <span> His brain scattered looking for missing </span>
  <span>pieces</span>
  <span>. He'd eaten his supper and drank his coffee as he did each </span>
  <span>night;</span>
  <span> he'd relieved himself in a secluded area off the road, he'd climbed into the coach with the Hale sisters. Perhaps then, perhaps that was when – he threw up again and he was hot, so hot; he dowsed his head in the snow. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> got to him finally, her hand coming down on his back, her whole weight above h</span>
  <span>im</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Did he really remember his dinner? The memory was so thin, the tail-end of a wisp of smoke. Was it truly the night’s campfire he remembered? Or was it the past three blended in to one moving picture?</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stiles,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> said, hands clutching his shoulders, “Can you hear me?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t – remember</span>
  <span> – w</span>
  <span>here</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>ve I been?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I told you this would happen, Tally,”</span>
  <span> said Peter</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Ignoring him </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> said, “You’ve been here, Stiles, with us, don’t you remember? We ate stew for supper, on the road, just by Hidden Pond; you sat by me and Cora.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m so hot,” he whined, shuddering, soaking in sweat, steam rising from his skin and </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> held him closer to herself. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Your name is Stiles,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> said firmly, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Say it</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” But his skin, his muscles, his bones were aflame; he was choking on the heat. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m – dreaming</span>
  <span>….”</span>
  <span> His vision wavered. There were rodents in the fields, their hearts thrumming and they scratched and scurried and bent the snow. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Stiles</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> barked, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Say it</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He could</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t disobey</span>
  <span> her, the whole world was full of her marionettes </span>
  <span>and he said, “My name – is Stiles.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You do not walk in the Wood,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> told him, “You walk on the path.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I – I don't,” he swallowed on tacky spit, “walk in the Wood.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Where do you walk</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“On, on the path.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Say it again.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not walk in the Wood,” he breathed the words, “I walk on the path.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It was there, in and out of his mind, the golden forest of yellowing autumn leaves and the gravel road. The brush so dense, there was no sky, only the trees and their fading leaves, the path crunching under his boots. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I am Stiles. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> hummed somewhere in the back on his mind, “To forget the path, is to forget myself.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The cold and the heat joined into a braid. Snow melt in his hands was turning to mist and he could no longer see the </span>
  <span>silver</span>
  <span> field they crouched in or hear </span>
  <span>the </span>
  <span>stamping</span>
  <span>, snorting horses</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I do not walk in the Wood. I walk on the path. To forget the path, is to forget myself. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I am Stiles. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He meandered along the winding road and it would vanish from him</span>
  <span> until he </span>
  <span>told it he belonged there. Red fur flashed behind a tree and he</span>
  <span> couldn’t go further; the </span>
  <span>cold turned his breath ic</span>
  <span>y</span>
  <span> in his throat. He was fixed on the roots of that tree, terror coursing, being driven through him by a pounding hammer and Fox was there, hiding, making all of his hair stand on end. It peeked out from the place it hid, and he realized he had never seen it so clearly, never so directly. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He expected a familiar face, like the foxes that prowled the outskirts of town or in the barley fields, but as Fox edged out from the tree, its eyes too large, too far apart and blank as the moon, the black corners of its mouth drooping too low and drooling, he realized it was anything but. Its fur was matted and dirty and frantic; a deranged creature, and hideous, mad with disease or evil or both. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He screamed, tried to run, to bolt into the forest – </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Hands fell on both of his cheeks, planting him to the spot, and he thrashed, he had to run, had to get away and he fought and bit and snarled, but the hands would not let go. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You are Stiles. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He was dressed as a shadow; broad, tall, shielding Stiles from the Fox. No. Not shielding him from it. The man was on bended knee and he was tall only because Stiles was so small. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Nothing hid behind the tree. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A hand petted over his head, lying </span>
  <span>his ears flat</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Stay on the path and I will find you at its end.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Stiles awoke from dreamless sleep back into the cold. Familiar sounds and smells curled him forward to knead his eyes and pull in a lung of sharpened air. He climbed from the coach to stretch his creaky limbs. He felt like the trees did when the temperature dropped: ready to enter a great sleep but squeaking and talking when the hard wind blew by. He didn't recognize the place they</span>
  <span> were </span>
  <span>stopped. </span>
  <span>Wherever</span>
  <span> it was, it was far from the road and a bout of disorientation made his </span>
  <span>head spin</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The field was cloaked in a dense mist that made the air clammy, but </span>
  <span>frigid,</span>
  <span> nonetheless. He found the Hales circled, as seemed their routine, around the morning’s fire with </span>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> son absent. By the sun, they should have been making ready to leave soon, but nothing was packed, rather, packs and crates were scattered </span>
  <span>around</span>
  <span>; the horses stood under a low scrim of trees grunting into their feed bags. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles poured coffee into a tin mug resting </span>
  <span>on</span>
  <span> one of the bean barrels and went to where Mr. Hale was lounging with his black traveling hat drawn down over his eyes. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you need help getting ready to leave?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter didn't </span>
  <span>stir,</span>
  <span> and he wondered if Mr. Hale had heard him until, “We’re stopped for a rest. So much traveling is terrible</span>
  <span> for your skin</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Where</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>s the other wagon?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Went ahead to the depot to resupply.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles bounced on the balls of his feet. The others were focused on their plates, shoveling down rounds of bacon and beans and fried potatoes except for the girls who were pensively studying fans of cards clutched in their hands. Their game was Gin Rummy. And it was too… ordinary. The Hales were anything but based on </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> experience with them and to see them so normal set him on e</span>
  <span>dge</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Where are we?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I leave such details to the little people.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I think I could </span>
  <span>use</span>
  <span> a soak, care to join?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s a bath house near?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter </span>
  <span>sat forward, tipping back his cap, “If only, <em>mon petit </em></span>
  <em>renard</em>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Clearly, he w</span>
  <span>asn’t going to give a </span>
  <span>detailed answer unless Stiles indulged him and given the strange quiet of the camp, the eyes Stiles could feel on him that would dart away </span>
  <span>if he looked</span>
  <span>, he found himself inclined to do so. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The fog grew thicker still as they walked and the ground more </span>
  <span>solid</span>
  <span> with crags of gnarled gray rock. Peter made polite conversation</span>
  <span>, but he was too distracted to hear it. </span>
  <span>His dreams were taking on a quality of realness that left him drifting, unable to discern his sleeping self from his waking self. </span>
  <span>T</span>
  <span>his </span>
  <span>blurred </span>
  <span>landscape was not helping him find evidence he was not </span>
  <span>really</span>
  <span> asleep, curled up on the carriage bench. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles asked</span>
  <span> suddenly, “Has something happened?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter paused</span>
  <span> his stride</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Something</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>s always happened,” he said </span>
  <span>maddeningly,</span>
  <span> and Stiles stared at him, hoping that his impatience was able to crack the dazed veil sheeting his expression. Peter said, “</span>
  <span>Feeling a</span>
  <span> little homesick?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I miss my father,” Stiles admitted, though he was unsure if that low feeling was the source of his feeling so off. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter nodded and kept walking, “Your life's been traumatic, possibly more so than Tally and mine, and now you’re vulnerable. It’s not strange you feel that way. Even if that backwater was cruel, it was familiar. We fail into what we know.” </span>
  
</p><p><span>They walked on in silence, passing stark, spindling, leafless trees and losing them again in the mist. Stiles asked, “Are you witches?” </span><span>W</span><span>hen he asked it, he found</span> <span>it was not a concept that frightened him, at least, not as it would have before meeting them. They hadn't used their magic to harm him, the opposite really. They healed him and hid him from the many winking, watching eyes of the Harvestmen. His town, the Church, made hard cut the line between what was the Devil’s work and what was not and the Hales skirted that line in a way he had not known possible. </span></p><p>
  <span>“No,” Peter told him, “we’re not witches. I have known my share of witches, however, and they’ve all been </span>
  <span>atrociously pedantic; intellectuals that eat merry mushrooms and smoke cannabis; mostly harmless</span>
  <span>. The ones that haven’t tried to skin and sacrifice me, that is.” Mr. Hale gave him a wink. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Am I a witch?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>If you had a second dick you’d know. </span>
  <span>Witchcraft's the same</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“If I was… you wouldn’t be afraid?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I'm afraid of everything, that is why I’m alive. I fear you. But Tally never would, such is her disposition; you could hold a knife to her belly, threatening to spill her guts and she would only love you for it.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s horrible.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“My sister is a saint of lost and broken things</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s why you</span>
  <span> never </span>
  <span>married?” Stiles asked, “Because you protect her?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Marriage is a pointless sentimental contract.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles thought of remarking on what a lonely existence Peter’s must have been, but he would not have been saying anything the man, himself, had not already considered. Enough people told Stiles what he was, what he would be, and to cast those sorts of words carelessly would do nothing to endear him to Peter Hale. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The hot spring was a steaming turquoise cauldron, barely visible through curtains of steam. Seeing it gave Stiles the footing he was missing. These pockets of healing waters were only revealed at the slopes beneath the great volcano, the mountain under which a demon king was said to slumber. Tiered shelves of white and gray rock jutted down a gently graded hill, each filled with </span>
  <span>bubbling</span>
  <span>, fantastically blue water. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Already soaking in one of the pools was Derek Hale, his clothes neatly folded and stacked </span>
  <span>on</span>
  <span> an outcropping. His head was tipped back and his arms stretched out across the worn stone behind him. A smattering of sweat wetted the valley of his chest and there was color there, his skin reddened by the heat pouring off the </span>
  <span>burbling</span>
  <span> water’s surface. The pang returned, the sap-like throb Stiles had felt in the carriage after waking </span>
  <span>beside Derek</span>
  <span>. He swallowed thickly, his mouth going dry. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“And I thought you were off tearing angstily around the woods,” Peter said, doffing his jacket. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s head came up at his uncle’s voice, looking stony as if he had become part of the pool he sat in. He said nothing more than what could be interpreted by his glare. The expression changed some when he saw Stiles at Peter’s side, but if </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> presence bothered him, he remained silent about it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter stripped out of his clothes, cursing the cold and slid into the water with a hiss and then a welcoming groan. But Stiles was stuck to the spot, heart sputtering. He couldn't have e known what to expect in coming here, but this was quite far from anything he had anticipated. And… for a moment, his feelings were eddies, swirling as the mountain spring did, turning in and out at the prospect of peeling off his clothing</span>
  <span> as either of the Hale men watched</span>
  <span>. He recalled Derek’s anger at the doctor, remembered the rough feeling of having a blanket wrapped around him, sparing him any dignity he might have had left. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Walk back if you </span>
  <span>want</span>
  <span>,” Peter said</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles considered </span>
  <span>it</span>
  <span>. He… he di</span>
  <span>dn’</span>
  <span>t want to go back. </span>
  <span>This was the feeling that came on whenever he was confronted with the choice to do something wrong.</span>
  <span> What he had done in David's office was wrong because he'd been told until that moment and after, that it was. </span>
  <span>But if</span>
  <span> it was, he was </span>
  <span>beginning to think he wasn’t </span>
  <span>the only one that had been wrong. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He shrugged out of his coat and the icy wind pierced through his shirt, raising goose flesh across his arms and chest. This did</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t feel wrong</span>
  <span>, it just didn’t feel right </span>
  <span>and </span>
  <span>he no longer </span>
  <span>k</span>
  <span>new why</span>
  <span>. He was straddling the line like the Hales and he didn’t want to cower away from it. He toed off his boots and stuffed his socks into them and Derek’s eyes were jewels, the rise and fall of his strong chest steady. He might never know why Derek watched him this way, like he saw nothing else and never wanted to again and Stiles thought maybe it was better he never know. Because his mind filled in the reason with such lovely thoughts he knew could never be true. He might regret this moment someday if Derek ever chose to expose whatever twisted, cruel thing lived in him; the sort of dark, unsaid cruelty that buried deep roots in most men. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He liked being seen. He spent so much time unseen he’d begun to believe there was nothing to look at. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He undid the buttons of his shirt with shaking hands turned </span>
  <span>violet</span>
  <span> with cold and sucked in sharp breath when he passed his navel, his stomach tensing against the air. His shirt dragged on his nipples, hardening them with its light touch. </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> stepped from his trousers and folded his things in the driest place he could </span>
  <span>spot</span>
  <span>. He had been naked so many times before, sometimes whether he had wanted to be or not, and he had grown callous to it. The doctor and his school teacher, Jackson </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span> and Landsey and Danny, they used it to punish him, but when Derek’s eyes flickered over his skin, when a small part formed between his lips, he felt something he’d not felt before and a piece of his being wept. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>You </span>
  <span>fix’n</span>
  <span> to freeze to death</span>
  <span>?” griped Mr. Hale, smashing the silence. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Flushing, Stiles </span>
  <span>waded into </span>
  <span>the pool and sat, knees tucked up to his chest. As a gawky adolescent this position may have allowed him space between the Hales and himself, but he had long since filled in, his back and arms having broadened from his labors and the </span>
  <span>hot spring</span>
  <span> was cramped. Warmth made him quake with shock, heating him so rapidly black spots </span>
  <span>blotted</span>
  <span> his vision. </span>
  
</p><p><span>“</span><span>Thank God for </span><span>Thalia</span><span> Hale’s better sensibilities</span><span>,” Peter said.</span> <span>Derek made no indication he had heard his uncle and this did nothing to deter Peter from continuing on. He was clearly more infatuated with the sound of his own voice than he was with any other noise. “I've heard </span><span>the springs can even heal a damaged soul</span><span>.” </span></p><p>
  <span>“Is your soul damaged</span>
  <span>?” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Surely, not nearly as </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>damaged</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span> as your liver, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he thought to himself.</span>
  
</p><p><span>He let his gaze fall away from Derek but return occasionally. They weren’t speaking psychic words. This was a different kind of communicating; it accomplished very little more </span><span>than </span><span>swapping pulses. </span><span> Peter’s company complicated what otherwise would have been an intimate silence</span><span>, but not engaging</span> <span>him</span><span> was too revealing</span><span>. W</span><span>hat it was Stiles was trying to hide he </span><span>couldn’t</span><span> put </span><span>into </span><span>words. </span></p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Horribly, the curse of blue eyes they say</span>
  <span>. Personally, I find I</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>m quite comfortable with my choices.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Peter</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Derek barked and Stiles was taken aback to hear him speak and find his attention diverted. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter flicked water at his nephew, “I thought you, of anyone in this family, would agree,” he said blandly, “Always so quick to obey mommy.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  
  <span>“I’m not stupid,” Stiles said, glaring at Peter.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“If Mrs. Hale told you to keep something from me, then you should.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Missus Hale?” Peter chuckled, “I wouldn’t</span>
  <span> use that </span>
  <span>honorific around my sister if I were you.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Despite his earlier remark about not being stupid, Peter was gifted at making him feel that way. But Stiles refused to let himself be distracted by Peter’s teasing. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s right,” growled Derek. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter rolled his eyes, “I</span>
  <span> haven’t said anything</span>
  <span>, have I? So, by all means, the two of you should continue to live in your ignorant little bubbles. You make quite the pair.” This looked to unnerve Derek, forcing his gaze and his features to fall.</span>
  <span> He said nothing in return.</span>
  <span> If he would not, then Stiles could not help but do it for him, the impulse rising out of what could only be a misplaced sense of opposition. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Stiles snapped, “It’s sad</span> <span>the only satisfaction you get out of existing is pushing people</span><span> around</span><span> and making them feel ridiculous for it.” </span></p><p><span>“When you’ve been alive as long as I have, you’ll find that is the only pleasure there is. All of this,</span> <span>all of these rules we impose on ourselves are a pointless exercise in futility. Some people use them to assert themselves over others and the rest are happy enough to accept it for no other reason than they have been told they should. If I make you feel ridiculous it is because you </span><em><span>should</span></em><span> feel that way; </span><em><span>rules</span></em><span> are </span><span>ridiculous,</span><span> and my sister’s rules are no exception. One day, I think you'll agree, you might even ask me to help you break a few.” </span></p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>W</span>
  <span>hose rule is it you follow your sister around</span>
  <span>?” Stiles countered, “You don’t agree with her, you argue with her children constantly </span>
  <span>but</span>
  <span> you stay.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I stay because I shudder to think what I would be without her,” Peter said plainly</span>
  <span>. His </span>
  <span>answer was far more earnest than Stiles expected. Earnest because it was painfully clear that Peter’s attachment to his sister had nothing to do with being related to her. He was bonded to her in a way that exceeded familial expectations. Stiles could</span>
  <span>n’t </span>
  <span>bring himself to say aloud what his mind had suddenly come to understand: </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> made </span>
  <span>Peter’s</span>
  <span> humanity a breathing, living thing, despite himself.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“And you?” Peter asked, “You’re </span>
  <span>scared</span>
  <span> of us and the way we make you feel. I can smell it all over you</span>
  <span>. E</span>
  <span>very time one of us gets too close, does something outside of the limited scope</span>
  <span> of your socialization, you stink</span>
  <span>. And don’t be boring. Don’t tell me it’s because </span>
  <span>you have</span>
  <span> no other choice, because all three of us, even Derek, knows </span>
  <span>you have</span>
  <span> nothing but choices.” </span>
  
</p><p><span>“Nothing I say is the </span><span>right</span><span> answer and anything I say o</span><span>nly opens </span><span>me up to more</span> <span>ridicule.” </span></p><p>
  <span>Peter laughed dryly and leaned back, freeing enough space between them so that Stiles could breathe again. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“True,</span>
  <span> I do like getting a rise out of people</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“And you’re dying to tell me what I think so you might as well</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter mused, “We give you an excuse to behave </span>
  <span>the way they always told you not to.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles wished he could be angry with</span>
  <span> the </span>
  <span>assessment, and maybe he was if only because </span>
  <span>Peter </span>
  <span>was able to put words to what</span>
  <span> would otherwise have been frothy emotion and nothing more</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He</span>
  <span> continued on, “</span>
  <span>Indulging you is turning into a fascination to me. I’m curious what you’ll do.</span>
  <span>”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Like your dog?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not our </span>
  <span>dog</span>
  <span>,” said Derek, surprising them both, eyes burning with more words that were tightly bottled. </span>
  
</p><p><span>“No, not our </span><span>dog</span><span>,” Peter agreed, </span><span>“ I think of you much higher </span><span>than that; you have the potential to be our equal, or I suspect, our better, </span><span>with</span><span> time and space. But I’m afraid, as you said, Tally</span><span>’s </span><span>forbidden me to speak any</span> <span>more </span><span>about it</span><span>. I could be persuaded to</span><span>… if </span><span>you ask me outright, not even my sister could deny me an answer to a direct question.” </span></p><p>
  <span>Peter’s gaze dared him to ask, to beg him for an answer, to tell Stiles why he was plagued by dark thoughts, why his worst fantasies, even ones he had not known he had, seemed to come to pass; why everyone he had ever known feared him, including his own father. But he kept his mouth sealed if only to prove he was not as weak to Peter’s charms as Peter knew he was. In weeks or months, perhaps he might cave </span>
  <span>in</span>
  <span>, but it would</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t be today.  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“As you wish,” Peter said</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> answer</span>
  <span>ing</span>
  <span> his silence, “I </span>
  <span>won’t say more until you ask</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop toying with him,” growled Derek. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“So </span>
  <em>
    <span>protective</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Peter shot back, far more severely than deserved and Derek came forward, stare cold enough to freeze a </span>
  <span>person</span>
  <span> solid.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve said what you wanted,” seethed Derek, “and now you’re finished.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>This time when the light caught in Derek’s eyes it was</span>
  <span>n’t a </span>
  <span>trick; the winter sun was too low and the fog too dense. His irises flashed an ancient, glowing lapis. Peter gave a mocking ga</span>
  <span>sp</span>
  <span>. Stiles was not the object of Peter’s taunting, merely a tool used to manipulate his nephew into doing something he should</span>
  <span>n’t</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> core </span>
  <span>went</span>
  <span> cold, forgetting for a moment that he sat in volcanic water. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He couldn’t help but admire Peter’s </span>
  <span>twisted cunning</span>
  <span>. He</span>
  <span> said </span>
  <span>he was sworn to say nothing to Stiles of the Hale family’s secrets and Stiles ha</span>
  <span>dn’</span>
  <span>t wanted to know, but he could</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t un-see what he had</span>
  <span>. It </span>
  <span>sent a streak of blind terror through him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Breath shuddering out of him, Stiles choked, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Shifter</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Shelter Of Your Arms</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Derek did</span>
  <span>n’t </span>
  <span>show signs of the Wolf until he was far passed the expected age.  His sisters both experienced their first Moon when they </span>
  <span>turned</span>
  <span> thirteen. For years, despite his looks, the set of his eyes and his pointed eye-teeth, his family thought </span>
  <span>he was</span>
  <span> untouched by the Spirit, a lone human in a pack of wolves. And when he did turn finally, in an unexpected fit of rage, claws bursting from his fingers and mats of black animal hair from an elongated canine face, he had mauled </span>
  <span>the man that was supposed to be his father</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He was too large, too fast, too strong, too quick to anger to be taught </span>
  <span>as </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> had taught Laura and would later teach Cora. Her meditations and chants did nothing to </span>
  <span>focus him </span>
  <span>and give him back control </span>
  <span>of</span>
  <span> his body. She and Peter were forced to turn him loose in the Wood beyond the Wall</span>
  <span>; </span>
  <span>what other place could they bring him where </span>
  <span>it was certain he wouldn’t run afoul of </span>
  <span>regular people? For months he had lived in filth, feeding on dead creatures for lack of any hunting abili</span>
  <span>ty</span>
  <span>. He still woke in cold sweat from dreams of mites in his fur and rank blood crusted to his muzzle, crying to the Moon to stop the pain. And Moon never answer</span>
  <span>ing</span>
  <span>. She hung in the night, grinning down on him and offered no words of comfort, no warm hearth to lay beside. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>None of them knew what he meant to them anymore. His sisters were awkward when he returned.</span>
  <span> Laura </span>
  <span>didn’t fawn over him, she didn’t curl up beside him at night</span>
  <span>. She sensed he would assume a place above her when for so long he had been lower in their caste than even Cora, who had yet to present her wolf. And his mother… she blamed herself for not preparing him, for assuming he would always be her delicate mortal son. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He slept alone. He ate alone. When the Moon turned her full attention to world, he suffered her curse, her gift, alone. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>And after being alone for so long, self-imposed or not, his wolf cracked under the absence of its pack. He no longer remembered what the argument had been about, but he remembered going blind with rage, he remembered throwing over the dinner table, his claws marring the grain, his roar shaking the crystal chandelier, and he remembered lunging for Laura’s throat. Peter had tackled him before he could get close enough to </span>
  <span>hurt</span>
  <span> her. He</span>
  <span>’d </span>
  <span>tried to apologize, mortified, but he suspected she never truly forgave him and the others – he hated the doe-like eyes they gave him should the subject of his control ever arise. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek sat on a log by the fire, head cradled in both hands, mind roaring. Peter had gotten what he wanted as he always managed to and Derek could do nothing about it. He couldn’t admit to his mother how it had happened, couldn’t give Peter the satisfaction of hearing it aloud, that he had been played;</span>
  <span> that he was</span>
  <span> too stupid to control his own instincts. His uncle and his mother fought now, in whispered hisses and growls, neither daring to yell as he knew they wanted to. It was the same argument, again, again, again. And </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> had lost only because she hadn't kept her brother away, even knowing him as she did; she'd never been good at denying him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The log shifted as Cora slid into the empty space beside him. She insistently nestled into his side, poking and goading until he lifted his arm so that she could lay against him for warmth. </span>
  <span>She sniffed around his throat</span>
  <span>. She was the only one, </span>
  <span>other than </span>
  <span>their mother, who touched him this way. The others would rub his cheeks, sniff at his hair if he was ever gone too long, but they would never allow themselves to be trapped in his arms. He wore his betrayal as a brand they could all sense, even Boyd. But Cora was young still, too young to remember or to have fully understood what he had done. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Uncle Peter's an abominable ass,” she whispered. Instinctively, he looked to their mother, still engaged in her quarrel, and Peter, but they were each too distracted by the other to have heard. And if they had, neither was terribly skilled at punishing their youngest daughter, not with her huge brown eyes and soft, fey-like face. Derek had no response. Peter'd done what came naturally to him and Derek had</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t known enough to make himself discrete. Or worse, he had known enough, but could not – could </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> – keep his focus while his heart was laid out before him, breathing and blinking and batted </span>
  <span>around</span>
  <span> for sport. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mother doesn’t blame you,” Cora muttered unhelpfully. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I know.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> may not have been able, or willing, to pour over the subtext of what Derek had told her: that he had lost control because of Peter’s games and Stiles had known what he'd seen, but his little sister, with frightening acuity, had picked apart the true events in a matter of seconds. She knew as well as he what Peter was capable of.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s still sitting</span>
  <span>,” she said.</span>
  
</p><p><span>He </span><span>could</span><span>n’</span><span>t stop himself listening, ears awake to any new movement, to heartbeat and breath; sounds he coul</span><span>dn’t </span><span>ignore so wrong was the idea of leaving Stiles totally alone. He had stopped pacing, churning and trampling snow and had been </span><span>sitting</span><span> for an hour on a stump just inside the </span><span>endarkened</span> <span>treeline</span><span>. </span></p><p><span>“He hasn’t run away screaming for help,” said his sister softly, as if this fact should offer Derek any comfort at all. Absconding to the forest, somewhere far from the Hales and uttering not a word or giving even a shadow of his feelings was far worse in Derek’s mind. If Stiles had run, he would have understood and it would have been a painful thing – ghosts of dread at the thought made him sick down to the soles of his feet</span> <span>– but this, being denied anything useful, being forced to sit and wait, it was unbearable. Derek, in one careless motion, had unraveled his true self and the selves of his family and Stiles had given him nothing for it. </span><span>I</span><span>t was as much as he deserved. Who was he to expect, to demand, an answer</span><span>?</span></p><p>
  <span>“Rejection is only one of infinite possibilities,” said Cora. He was not surprised by her words, he had never been much for concealing himself from her. He had heard the phrase enough times to roll his eyes at it. </span>
  <span>Reductionist </span>
  <span>words meant to dismiss gloomy feelings never put him at ease</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>He was on feet the instant he heard the first footfall and his heart began to stammer when he heard the next, and the next, faster and faster until he thought his ears might burst. Stiles stepped into the orange circle of glow given off by their campfire. Peter and </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> had stopped bickering, perhaps when they saw Derek shoot upwards. Eyes like rosin in the low light, moved around to each of them; they did not come to Derek first or last, giving him no real position, as if he meant nothing, and… it had been an absurd, childish fantasy that he could mean anything to Stiles. What had he offered? No comfort, no real words, only a means to douse pain. How could anyone have warmth or even love for the damp cloth on their forehead or the bandage on their arm? </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you ever killed anyone?” Stiles asked generally, face set, not angrily or out of fear, but numbly. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> looked too conflicted to answer him and so Peter, unabashedly, said, “Yes.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles gave a pensive nod, his mind was turning over, mulling on the answer without more information and Derek wanted to scream. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Am I like you</span>
  <span>?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We don’t know,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> told him firmly, “not for certain… it doesn’t matter what you are. We care for you all the same.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles glared at her, his hair peaked into an unwashed ar</span>
  <span>ch</span>
  <span> from where he had undoubtedly been clutching it while he thought. “There are girls in Last Rest that force themselves indignity so they can feed themselves. You didn’t help them, you probably didn’t even notice them, because no one really wants to see the</span>
  <span>m</span>
  <span>. You chose me because I’m like you. If I</span>
  <span> hadn’t been</span>
  <span>…,” he closed his mouth, eyes doleful, the unspoken </span>
  <em>
    <span>I would</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>n’</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>t be here now</span>
  </em>
  <span> ringing</span>
  <span> clearly</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>What Stiles couldn't know was that </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> saw the things he described, and a few worse, and she would've knelt in the streets to clean their feet and wash their hair and dress them if she could, but to what end? No one could save them all and Peter had tried to stop her coming to Stiles in the church that night; tried to stop her drawing more attention to them than they already had. It would have been for the better, Derek thought bitterly, if she'd taken in one of those girls, instead of coming to </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> aid. No one would think it strange, a woman of new wealth, spending her generosity on impoverished young women driven to prostitution. But to take in Stiles, a person lower than </span>
  <span>a</span>
  <span> whore and to do so, so publicly would cost them greatly in ways they had yet to discover and on this was the only point Derek and Peter had agreed. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Maybe Stiles was right and </span><span>Thalia’s</span><span> last shred of ability to look away from the ugliness of human society was spent when she saw one of her own kind being beaten for the barest of reasons. But how could they explain something like this to him? </span><span>Stiles’s</span><span> persecution was </span><span>born</span> <span>out of</span><span> a different womb altogether, even if the hatred of Fox </span><span>changelings</span><span> intersected occasionally with that of Shifters, he was clearly struggling with the concept that he might be one of them. There was no unity in his struggle, no pack to return to, he was forced to shoulder it all alone, closed off in a cell of glass walls.</span></p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>So you hate us</span>
  <span>? You think we did this to you?” demanded Erica, arms crossed over her chest.  Boyd put a hand to her shoulder, but she shrugged him off</span>
  <span>, was</span>
  <span> angry when the rest of them could not bring themselves to it. “What a tragedy,” she snapped, “to have been taken in when no one wanted you. We’ve never laid a cruel hand on you and yet the moment you discover what we are, you dare to </span>
  <em>
    <span>judge us</span>
  </em>
  <span>? That </span>
  <em>
    <span>cunt</span>
  </em>
  <span> David </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span> tried to </span>
  <em>
    <span>rape </span>
  </em>
  <span>you and you haven’t said a word </span>
  <span>about it</span>
  <span>!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She could very well have smacked him for the impact of her words and Derek’s wolf threatene</span>
  <span>d;</span>
  <span> he forced himself to breathe. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Erica, that’s quite enough,” said </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>, pale and stricken. Composing herself, she said to Stiles, “You are right to be wary of us,” the admission cost her something, something even Derek could feel in the pit of his gut, “There are those of our kind that deserve fear, just like there are humans who deserve it. You asked if we</span>
  <span>’v</span>
  <span>e ever killed and, as Peter said, the answer is yes, but I swear to you we have never done so for </span>
  <span>sport</span>
  <span>. We choose to live among humans, because we know we are better, can be better, than mindless beasts. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I chose to intervene when I saw what was done to you because it's been done to me. I inherited the Wolf from the Ether</span>
  <span> and so did Peter; our parents were mortal</span>
  <span>. We were kept in cages, we were restrained and beaten and hidden </span>
  <span>under the house</span>
  <span> and I coul</span>
  <span>dn’t </span>
  <span>watch </span>
  <span>when I saw it happen to you</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p><span>The salty scent of sadness perforated</span> <span>the burning wood and wash of snow. It leaked from </span><span>Thalia</span><span> at first, her eyes wet and then from Stiles. A couple of tears rolled down his cheeks</span><span>.</span></p><p><span>“We did</span><span>n’</span><span>t know how to tell you,</span> <span>nothing seemed right, not with all that’s happened. I thought you should come to it gradually and I</span><span>’</span><span>m truly sorry it had to be this way.” </span></p><p>
  <span>Nodding miserably, sniffing, Stiles said, “I don’t hate you.” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> went to him, arms open and wrapped him up. Derek had thought he would cower away, but he did</span>
  <span>n’t</span>
  <span>. He was pliant against her and then returned her embrace, knuckles scarred and alabaster on her coat. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek lay on his back as the fire burned low.</span>
  <span> Someone looking </span>
  <span>might have thought he was watching the stars and he wished he could have cared about them enough to gaze kindly up. The sky could be vacant blackness and it would have held no more or less fascination to him. He was merely waiting. Waiting for sleep, for the next day, for sleep again. It was all he was able to do; dragging from one moment to the next and praying that one day it might end</span>
  <span>; </span>
  <span>he could</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t say if this end he was always </span>
  <span>waiting for </span>
  <span>meant death. He wasn’t </span>
  <span>as</span>
  <span> dramatic as Peter to frame it in that way, even if they both seemed to be waiting for the same thing. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His family slept on the other side of the smoking embers, breathing soundly, tangled up in each other, except for his uncle who had little stomach for so much closeness. Peter had gone back to the driver’s bench of the coach, for solitude, though Derek often wondered how much sleeping he did on any given night. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He sat up cautiously when he heard the coach’s cabin door creak open and feet in the snow. Stiles didn't drop his gaze until he was standing above Derek in his underclothes, shivering, nothing to protect him from the night other than his boots. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Move over,” he said through chattering teeth. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek, reeling, stunned at the command, dumbly glanced at his bedroll and his torso disappearing into it, as if Stiles had not realized he was occupying it. Stiles made an annoyed sound and crawled in without waiting for an answer. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Take off your boots,” Derek grunted, as he was bodied out of the way and for the life of him, he could</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t understand why that, of all things, was what made it passed his lips. Stiles kicked them off, not caring where they might end up, and laid beside Derek on his side. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re good at saying nothing,” Stiles said, still adjusting himself, trying to find comfort on the hard ground, perhaps a bit too determinedly. </span>
  <span>Judging by</span>
  <span> his erratic heartbeat and leafy scent, one Derek was </span>
  <span>beginning</span>
  <span> to associate with nerves, he was not nearly as confident as he was pretending to be. “So, don’t say anything, just – look at me.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>There was no refusing him, not that Derek could, not with all of his might. He could go to pieces, fretting over what was happening or why. At this moment, however, Stiles was close to him. Close because he chose to be and that was all there was. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek started moving as well, </span>
  <span>shocked out of stillness</span>
  <span>. Stiles didn't recoil when Derek repositioned him, hand flat to the small of his back, pulling him flush, arm going under </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> head, hopefully to make a better pillow than the ratty hay filled one Derek had flattened a thousand times over. Whatever Stiles had been expecting, it was</span>
  <span>n’t </span>
  <span>this, not to be taken in so readily or touched so firmly, as if there had never been a question, as if they had never slept in separate spaces and his surprise made itself evident by quick-shuttering eye lids. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He couldn’t have known how touch-starved Derek’s wolf had been; Derek had</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t known it until this moment and he was nearly blind with the sensation of being woven into another person. Still, Stiles didn't shy away from him, Derek could see the recognition in his eyes, the acceptance. The high heat of the wolf quickened under their covers, melting away the chill on </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> skin. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek did as he was asked and said nothing, his gaze fixed, unable to stray away from </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> spots, his lashes, his mouth, the unkempt waves of his hair. He had thought briefly something like this, Stiles pressed to him, hands on his bare chest, would arouse him and perhaps it did in a small way, but he couldn't bring himself to feel this was at all sexual. It was too intimate to be lustful. No bed Derek had ever shared felt this way, no bed he'd ever shared made him feel anything at all. He swallowed around a tight throat and asked, despite his tacit agreement to remain silent, “Can I touch you?” It exited him breathlessly, blisteringly. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Your questions never sound like questions,” Stiles murmured, not meeting his eyes and then, after a few silent seconds, he nodded. Derek ran his fingers across the side of </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> cheekbone, down his jawline and in the dim light he could still make out the slightly yellowed skin of a healing bruise. Stiles watched him. He had been thinking Derek wanted something else and he had agreed as if sleeping here were something that needed to be bargained for. It turned Derek’s stomach. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His thumb lingered on </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> chin. There were not many humans, or any Derek had met, that were comforted by looking into the eyes of another</span>
  <span> person</span>
  <span> for so long. But that was all Stiles had asked him to do; look at him and not stop looking.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. It's True That We Love One Another</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Fever Hill was a much larger town than Last Rest. </span>
  <span>They said Good River was a great deal larger still but he couldn’t imagine how. </span>
  <span>It was here the trading was done, including </span>
  <span>merchandise</span>
  <span> from the coastal cities. Whole shops were dedicated to books</span>
  <span>, stationery</span>
  <span> and chocolates. Stiles leaned out the window as they passed the storefronts, many of them opened up on to the street hocking wares. </span>
  <span>H</span>
  <span>e had never seen so many </span>
  <span>people in</span>
  <span> one place or so many dressed so vibrantly</span>
  <span>, b</span>
  <span>ut he was the only one intrigued by the</span>
  <span>m, the</span>
  <span> smells of baking cakes or the brightly painted signs. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When he glanced over his shoulder, Derek was reclined in the seat beside him, nose in a book with a ragged cover and his sisters were gazing </span>
  <span>boredly</span>
  <span> into space as their carriage plodded along through heavy traffic. He turned back to the juggling fire dancers, twirling their batons and blowing flames from their mouths while children shrieked. He was </span>
  <span>so distracted by </span>
  <span>the bustle, the never-ending stream of sound and movement </span>
  <span>he did</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t feel Derek behind him until he was leaned out the window flagging someone down, hand carelessly balancing on </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> knee. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What can I get you, Sir?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Sweet bread,” Derek said</span>
  <span>. The woman </span>
  <span>reached into her wicker basket to trade a curl</span>
  <span>y</span>
  <span> pastry glistening with syrup for a few coins pinched between Derek’s fingers. She thanked him and called “Good day!” after the coach. Derek settled back into his seat and pushed the roll into </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> hand and Stiles was left confusedly staring at it, the pads of his fingers going sticky with running glaze. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You eat it,” Derek informed him</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I should hope so</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He bit into it </span>
  <span>and after days of bland meat and rice and coffee he let out a pleased groan. Elsie rarely had the means to purchase cane sugar and when she did she charged more money for her cakes and biscuits than Stiles could justify spending on something as short lasting as patisserie. He should have had the sense to savor it, but in a matter of seconds he had wolfed the sweet roll down and was licking his fingers clean. He found Derek watching him by the end, his mouth hitched to one side.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>What</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Shaking his head and raising his brows, Derek leaned back into his seat and continued reading, or pretending to read. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Our brother seems to be attempting a flirtation,” Cora observed to her sister beneath the frills of her </span>
  <span>folding</span>
  <span> fan. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Rather clumsily, I should say,” Laura replied. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I dare say his awkwardness has a certain charm.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Very certain.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Maybe</span>
  <span> we should</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t tease him, he’s look</span>
  <span>ing</span>
  <span> awfully embarrassed.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You both think you’re terribly clever,” snapped Stiles, his cheeks heating. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>I</span>
  <span>gnore them,” Derek said, eyes not leaving the pages of his book, but burning a hole through them all the same.</span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p><span>They came to Hale House just outside the sprawl of the city close to sunset. Life hadn't paused in the absence of the Hales. There were a myriad of servants going about their daily chores, beating out rugs and lighting sconces and readying for their masters’ supper. The house itself was not grander than Mayor Hubbard’s own, but the restraint of their purchase spoke even more of their wealth. With such an ample staff running the grounds, Stiles suspected they could have chosen a manor twice the size and grandeur of this one. </span><span>Thalia</span> <span>didn’t strike </span><span>him as a flashy </span><span>person</span><span>. She dressed well, kept things </span><span>organized</span><span>, but material objects did not seem to matter terribly to her. </span></p><p>
  <span>“Your mother runs a fur trading company?” Stiles asked in order to clarify some of what he knew about the Hales, which was not as much as he would have liked. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” replied Cora, taking his hand as she stepped from the carriage, “</span>
  <span>Mother used to catch and skin sables with her bare hands.” </span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>“And these servants are … like you?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She nodded, “There are not many of our kind with the resources that we have. Mother gives employment to any shifter looking to incorporate themselves into the human mainstream. On the condition that they behave themselves</span>
  <span>; n</span>
  <span>o late-night snackin</span>
  <span>g</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The ordinariness of the valets</span>
  <span>, </span>
  <span>footmen and maids was daunting to wrap his mind around. He had not known what to expect coming here, much less what to expect of other </span>
  <span>Murklings</span>
  <span>. He was only ever taught of how vicious they were, that they stole and devoured children, killing indiscriminately to get to their prey. But the Hales, despite their many quirks, were as normal to him as anyone he had met. Really, the only thing that set them apart was their kindness and if that was so, then the line between humans and monsters was far more blurred than he</span>
  <span>’d thought</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Erica </span>
  <span>was</span>
  <span> right; David </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span> was far more of a </span>
  <span>savage</span>
  <span> than anyone he saw before him. The shame he felt standing in their courtyard was a spike through his chest. A snowball struck him in the shoulder, breaking him out of his mind. Cora laughed high and sharp at him and scampered away toward a maid standing in the doorway. The plump woman threw her arms around </span>
  <span>her.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s our nanny,” Derek said, having appeared silently at his side as people scurried around them unpacking the coaches and untethering the horses. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Aren’t you a little </span>
  <span>old for a nanny?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek leaned into whisper</span>
  <span>, </span>
  <span>his hot breath tickling </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> neck, “I should hope so</span>
  <span>.” H</span>
  <span>e sauntered off toward the house with both hands tucked into his pockets, leaving Stiles alone, his spine tingling. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Hale girls did not do their </span>
  <span>brother’s flirtations justice.</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stiles, there is someone I would very much like you to meet,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> said, once his coat and gloves had been </span>
  <span>taken</span>
  <span> away. He could hardly keep track of the </span>
  <span>people</span>
  <span> he had seen already seeing as the Hale household was really more of a small village. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I w</span>
  <span>ant to talk about my position</span>
  <span>,” he started saying, but she was already whisking him up the massive marble staircase at the center of the foyer. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, yes, we will, but I think you can stand going just a few more days without ruining your eyes and posture </span>
  <span>mending </span>
  <span>our mangled clothing.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“But to be clea</span>
  <span>r –</span>
  <span>,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Goodness, Stiles, I promise you can work yourself to the bone if yo</span>
  <span>u desire</span>
  <span>, but for now,” she said leading him across the landing and into a two-story library. They stood at the railing of the top floor, looking down across rows of </span>
  <span>worktables</span>
  <span> and hutches lit by – if his father could only see this – electric lamps. The chandelier, one easily the size of a horse, hung above them, dropping into the open hole of the </span>
  <span>gallery</span>
  <span> also hummed with electricity, it’s pendant shaped crystals tinkling. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> brought him to the nearest table, atop which a white-haired man was reclining and smoking, an red brocade cushion under his head. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stiles, this is Christian,” she said and the man propped himself up on one arm upon seeing them, “We, as shifters, live in large family groups and appoint a single outsider to act as our emissary. Currently our emissary, Doctor Deaton, is away tending to some matters for me and Christian has assumed his duties.</span>
  <span> He keeps our history, attends to healthcare and teaches the children</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Pleased to meet you</span>
  <span>.” Stiles held out his hand.</span>
  <span> Christian regarded it, dragging smoke from his cigarette, before shaking loosely. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Charmed</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Christian </span>
  <span>can teach you about the Wood and your gifts.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I haven’t got any gifts</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She moved her hand to his elbow, “</span>
  <span>Y</span>
  <span>ou do, Stiles. The first night we met I think you recognized our wolves, </span>
  <span>I’m not sure</span>
  <span> how, but you felt something, didn’t you? </span>
  <span>A</span>
  <span> presence? We have heightened senses as shifters, we can smell and hear</span>
  <span> what humans don’t</span>
  <span>, we can even</span>
  <span> sense changing emotions </span>
  <span>with enough practice. And that night, I could sense your mind going into</span>
  <span> – you call it the Murk –</span>
  <span> we call it the Wood. It is the place where our spirits </span>
  <span>come from</span>
  <span>, connecting them even when our bodies are far apart.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The Wood. Stiles swallowed, had he dreamed of that place? Had he been there? </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He felt ridiculous for even entertaining the thought out loud but pressed it from himself no matter how absurd he thought it might sound to </span>
  <span>her</span>
  <span>, “Fox – lives </span>
  <span>there</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes! Exactly, as Peter mentioned, you are aware of Fox’s </span>
  <span>incorporeal form</span>
  <span>, it’s true spirit, aren’t you? I think you are in tune with the Wood in some way </span>
  <span>most</span>
  <span> no longer are and Christian can help you unlock that knowledge</span>
  <span>…</span>
  <span> if that's something you want.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want anything to do with it.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Denying your innermost self,” Christian said, “that seems healthy.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>H</span>
  <span>e sounded like a street cat if one could speak</span>
  <span>. The half curious, half indifferent weight of his gaze </span>
  <span>drew</span>
  <span> the comparison even closer in </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> mind. And Stiles ha</span>
  <span>d nothing to say back</span>
  <span>. He could bring himself to a place of understanding, or at least one from which he could try to understand the Hales and their kind, but not </span>
  <span>the Imp</span>
  <span>. Fox ruin</span>
  <span>ed</span>
  <span> anything and everything close to him and it would find him </span>
  <span>here </span>
  <span>too without his actively pursuing it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Can I lay down?</span>
  <span>” Stiles </span>
  <span>asked.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> was disappointed, but he </span>
  <span>didn’t</span>
  <span> think </span>
  <span>her</span>
  <span> disappointment was heaped on to himself. She might have thought his being in touch with the Wood could illuminate something for herself. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> had ventured into many circles of her kind, that much was clear, but knowing what he did now, even if it was just a glimpse, it seemed parts of her were unfilled. She </span>
  <span>wanted</span>
  <span> to understand while her brother lived opposite her, wanting only to live in the present and force others to do the same. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles wanted to help her, to please her, but </span>
  <span>he wouldn’t do this. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> beamed, her face turning bright, but the expression was coerced by her sense of hospitality, “I’ll show you </span>
  <span>your </span>
  <span>room.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p><span>He </span><span>tried not to think about the </span><span>bedroom’s </span><span>pretty </span><span>furniture and wide-open floor space </span><span>checkered</span> <span>with</span><span> patterned rugs. I</span><span>t wasn’t a </span><span>seamster’s</span><span> room</span><span>. Whoever</span><span> should have slept here wasn’t someone that had ever found mold growing in the heels of their boots.</span><span> What had he done in order to get to this place, to have buried himself deep within the Hales’ </span><span>chambers</span><span>? He'd been in the wrong place at the right time. </span><span>Thalia</span><span> saw herself battered and kneeling in the square, swallowing blood and she saved him the way she had probably dreamed someone would</span><span> save her</span><span>. </span></p><p>
  <span>When she left him there to rest, he kicked off his boots, lay on the downy mattress and let his eyes drift closed. In the carriage today, he had almost been able to immerse himself in their fantasy, he almost believed he belonged there with them. No matter how he arrived here, this was the future he wanted, wasn’t it? He was given a chance to begin again when he should have been dead any number of </span>
  <span>ways</span>
  <span>. He shield</span>
  <span>ed</span>
  <span> himself with sardonicism, but it was true, he would have died long before he had been able to make something of himself; it was a matter of when. And now that he was here, what he had done to repay them? He denied </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> the one thing she hadn’t possessed the rudeness to demand. She certainly had the right to.   </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He fell asleep, lost somewhere in the maze of those thoughts. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p><span>The winter set in heavier and sooner so close to the</span> <span>Smokies</span><span>. The snowpack built in around Hale House in dense icy walls that kept the household staff busy scraping out paths and chipping away at icicles hanging from the gutters. Stiles watched them occasionally during his breaks between pieces through the fros</span><span>ty windowpanes</span><span> of his mending room. The room was his to do what he liked with, and </span><span>Thalia</span><span> had </span><span>probably</span><span> hoped he would make it a parlor or study; something more personal than a </span><span>workstation</span><span>. It was not that he insisted on thwarting her attempts to make him comfortable. He wanted to serve them, help them in the best way he knew how. </span></p><p>
  <span>The </span>
  <span>Hale title </span>
  <span>was thrown random</span>
  <span>ly on him</span>
  <span>, the least he could do was earn the name and he could earn nothing sitting around, </span>
  <span>finding the bottom of every bottle in the cellar like Peter</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The servants </span>
  <span>didn’t pay much attention to him</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>They didn’t whisper or stare. </span>
  <span>His rooms were never </span>
  <span>torn apart</span>
  <span>, his clothes never hidden or ripped or </span>
  <span>stained</span>
  <span>. Their indifference</span>
  <span> felt fake, impossible</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>They </span>
  <span>did</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t avoid his gaze if ever they needed to speak to him, they did</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t chuckle darkly as he walked away. He came and went, went about his work</span>
  <span> and he was seen</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He wrote home. His waste bin was brimming with drafts by the time he gave up and picked one from the pile to post. </span>
  
</p><p><span>His father missed him. Melissa took care of him, but it was</span><span>n’</span><span>t the same as seeing his son every day. Despite this, he wrote that he was relieved Stiles </span><span>had</span><span> gone to a better place. </span><span>H</span><span>e</span><span> wrote that Stiles</span><span> deserved more. Stiles read </span><span>the</span><span> letter more than once over</span> <span>the next few days; he </span><span>carried </span><span>it around in his pocket because he knew he needed to believe his father’s words. Somehow, he needed to know this was where he was meant to be. Ultimately, this would be his repayment to </span><span>Thalia</span><span>: the day when he </span><span>was</span><span> able to wake in his fine bed and know his family was waiting for him at breakfast downstairs. In the meantime, he would mend their clothes and keep things tidy until his mind could catch up with this new reality. </span></p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>At night he would awake sometimes, chilled to the bone, the fire having reduced down to a dull glow. His body ached in all of its corners and he remembered the feeling of Derek Hale against him; their uncomplicated closeness. He toyed with the idea of padding down the hall and tucking himself into Derek’s bed and Derek would certainly let him, though Stiles couldn’t say why that was or how he knew it. </span>
  <span>H</span>
  <span>e never worked up the nerve. Derek was still a mystery, one he hadn’t the faintest inkling of how to begin unraveling. He couldn't convince himself on any given night he should </span>
  <span>try</span>
  <span> it. He</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>d thought Derek wanted only to push inside of him until he got his fill, it was </span>
  <span>easier</span>
  <span> to assume he was another in a never-ending supply of </span>
  <span>vacuous </span>
  <span>men ready to do just that. </span>
  
</p><p><span>He had</span><span>n’</span><span>t expected Derek want</span><span>ing nothing </span><span>more than to sleep next to him the way Stiles</span> <span>needed to feel the body-heat of another person that night. This should have been of some solace; the door was open, he needed only to pass through it whenever he sought comforting. But it was</span><span>n’</span><span>t. There was a shadow clinging to Derek Hale, one </span><span>Stiles</span><span>’</span><span>d</span><span> misconstrued and regardless of his mislabeling it, he wanted nothing to do with that sort of darkness. Its root went somewhere cold and lonely and, in that regard, it was</span><span>n’</span><span>t so different from David </span><span>Whittemore’s</span><span> own shadow or his son’s or Landsey Smith’s. Derek might not be </span><span>cruel but</span><span> hosting a dark </span><span>germinating spore </span><span>– it would find a way to manifest itself. Stiles had enough creeping fungus of his own to scorch and salt and, </span><span>maybe</span><span> it was selfish, but he did</span><span>n’</span><span>t believe he could consciously put himself in the path of someone as afflicted by this seed as he was. If he </span><span>were ever</span> <span>rid of it</span><span>, yes, he might run to Derek’s bed, maybe even want to spread his legs </span><span>for him</span><span>. </span></p><p>
  <span>Stiles let his hands wander down his torso at the thought. He recalled Derek standing the doorway of his bedroom, arms latched over a bare chest, his rolling muscle, his long neck. This was why he could</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t seek Derek out. Because he wanted so badly to see passed the flaws and the glaring warnings that he should turn back. He lusted after a version of Derek Hale that did</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t exist; a version untainted by whatever wicked thing had fostered the toadstools growing </span>
  <span>inside him</span>
  <span>. Derek may have wanted the same; Derek, if he wanted Stiles at all, wanted a purer form of him, a younger, unscathed part that no longer existed, if it ever had. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The edge of the headboard bit into </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> palm he was gripping it so hard when he came, air trapped in his throat unable to push out or suck back in. Cum spilled over his fingers in a hot, viscous spate, soaking his sleep pants. For a long while he lay there unmoving and unconcerned with </span>
  <span>his mess</span>
  <span>. He waited as his </span>
  <span>heart rate</span>
  <span> died back down and the twitches worked their way from his limbs. Before he could let himself fall back asleep he forced himself to rise and clean himself off. The relief he had felt at climax was as fleeting as it had ever been, but it did lift away some of the day’s stress. He'd lost a new set of needles somewhere in his sewing room and spent most of the afternoon turning over furniture to no avail. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles donned a robe and took his pitcher from the basin stand to refill with water. He ghosted through the halls, all of them lit by pale moonlight and soft shadows cast by trees beyond the windows. His steps were muffled by the plush runners stretching the length of each corridor. He had been skeptical of the copper plumbing in the Mayoral Manor, a rig that spr</span>
  <span>a</span>
  <span>ng more leaks and burst pipes than it could have been worth; having grown up muscling a heavy well crank he saw no need to improve on such a basic mechanism. But here, the sinks and extravagant porcelain toilet bowls worked silently and without complaint. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The kitchen door stood ajar allowing sliver of golden light to cut across the hall. Stiles put out a hand to push through it when he stopped. Gasp</span>
  <span>ing, whimpering</span>
  <span>, muffled, but there and a smell – he shut his eyes to breathe it in. Tangy musk and sweat rose above the old cooking scents. Stiles gently pushed the door open a bit wider. In the far corner, braced against a counter Peter Hale was thrusting, burying himself to the hilt into – Christian</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>The white hair betrayed him, but otherwise they both had their backs to Stiles. Christian’s head was bent, suppressing any noise trying to claw out of him, all of his weight </span>
  <span>leaned</span>
  <span> forward on to his hands, one thigh crooked atop the counter beside where they were planted. Peter held him, arm looped under his and twisted to grip his shoulder and steady himself, the other pressed to the wall before them. Peter was whispering something in his ear. They moved together, pressed flush along their seams, in slow, clipped thrusts, most of their clothes still on but haphazardly shoved out of the way. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles knew he should look away, return to his room, but the</span>
  <span>ir scene kept</span>
  <span> him there. He knew what David looked like hunched over him</span>
  <span>, </span>
  <span>grunting</span>
  <span> and</span>
  <span> fucking into him. It was a disturbing, deadly quiet thought, putting himself in that room as a watcher, invisible to the Reverend and to his past self. And he had thought that was what it meant to be intimat</span>
  <span>e</span>
  <span>. He</span>
  <span>’d kept his eyes closed because he couldn’t make himself watch, he didn’t know if he was supposed to look</span>
  <span>; he shut himself away, locked himself in a cell where he could be alone with the drops of pleasure he</span>
  <span> managed with David</span>
  <span>, but Christian…. His eyes were closed because of something else – not pain, not mortification</span>
  <span> or inexperience</span>
  <span>. He was moving with Peter, not in spite of him, and their pace was dreamily sedate. Peter did</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t slam into him, racing to orgasm, he kept himself sheathed as deep as he could, pulling out only enough to feel the relief of rejoining. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span> They weren’t fucking </span>
  <span>the way people joked about sex</span>
  <span>. Stiles had</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t known to think </span>
  <span>sex was much more than a joke</span>
  <span> until now, until he saw this. What he had experienced, the slurs and insults that'd gone through his ears, </span>
  <span>might as well have been describing an entirely alien act to what he was seeing</span>
  <span>. He had never been touched the way Peter was touching Christian, touching him like he might just die if they were to separate for even a moment, his forehead pressed between the man’s shoulder blades as if they could become one person if he willed it hard enough. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Was this who Peter thought of during those nights on the road spent reading or pretending to sleep on the driver’s bench? Stiles never would have thought him sentimental and perhaps he wasn't, but he had been away from Hale House so long, since before they had ever come across Stiles. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles backed silently away from the door</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> leaving them to each other. </span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. I Think I Smell A Rat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Stiles paced outside of the library’s arched entryway for several minutes, his sewing left upstairs and unattended while his mind scattered itself on a new threshing of thoughts. Without the tea prescribed to him for his nerves, he wa</span>
  <span>s worked up more easily</span>
  <span>. It was a bit freeing, being let loose from the corral of those drugs, whatever they were, but that freedom came at the price of struggling to focus when he needed to. He gave a distracted smile and wave to </span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span> and Boyd where they </span>
  <span>were</span>
  <span> bent over a </span>
  <span>study hutch</span>
  <span>. Vernon shook his head, but a good natured smile was plastered to his mouth the way one might smile at children screaming through the house. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles smelt the smoke before Christian appeared around the corner</span>
  <span>; </span>
  <span>his being there at all was still enough of a surprise that </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> breath </span>
  <span>caught</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re causing </span>
  <em>
    <span>a row</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he said irritably, his smoking hand rubbing small circles into his brow. His fingers were adorned with curious black rune-like tattoos and silver rings resting at different joints. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m just standing,” Stiles blurted, jittery and defensive, though he couldn’t attest as to why. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>pacing</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” H</span>
  <span>is voice </span>
  <span>was </span>
  <span>a deep purr and again it was hard not to think of him as a tomcat trapped in a lanky human suit. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Unsure of what the response here should be, Stiles plowed on with, “I changed my mind. I want</span>
  <span> to learn</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Christian took his measure, eyes drifting </span>
  <span>boredly</span>
  <span> from </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> forehead to the toe</span>
  <span>s</span>
  <span> of his boots. “Why?” he asked and dragged from his cigarette. Stiles hadn't expected that he would need to prepare a reason for taking Christian up on Mrs. Hale’s offer. The reason, the true reason – it came from what he should not have seen, but suspected he needed to. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s part of me,” he said, and it wasn't totally a lie, “I should know what it is.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Christian blew unconvinced tendrils of smoke from his nose</span>
  <span>. H</span>
  <span>e refrained from calling out Stiles on his white lie. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine, go fetch me,” his hazel eyes squinted in thought and then, “an eye dropper, a pitcher of water, a salt cellar, a silver knife, honey, three lemons and a bottle of bourbon.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles blinked a couple of times, as he was prone to do these days, “Now?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Christian made a show of glancing about their surroundings before snapping off, “Yes, </span>
  <em>
    <span>now</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Finding what he had been asked for was not the challenge of the request, rather it was trying to gather all of it together so that it was suitable for travel. One of the valets, Liam, lent him a rolling cart after taking pity on him. Christian’s strange requests seemed to be a frequent source of frustration for the staff. Stiles jogged behind the cart, worried he had taken too long already and cursing himself for not agreeing to this tutelage, if it could be called that – he was still unsure of what exactly he had agreed to – when first prompted. Perhaps then he could have spared himself this errand, or perhaps not. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He rounded a corner sharply, the supplies rattling and rolling and knocking into each other, but managing to remain intact and on the cart, even when he was forced to stop short. Derek’s hands shot out to stop the cart rolling </span>
  <span>from </span>
  <span>him over, jarring </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> gut in the process. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Derek!” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He had seen very little of the Hales over the last couple of weeks since their arrival here. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> and Peter were engaged in a constant stream of meetings both professional and social and the girls, too, were off most days visiting with friends after their long journey. Derek was a noted absence and occasionally </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> hands would still in whatever work they were doing should he hear footsteps in the hall or a knock on the door, his heart double-beating, but his anticipation was never warranted. And he never went looking for Derek either because each day he did not see him his mind grew vaster and emptier whenever he tried to imagine what he would say. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> mouth was filled with cotton now that Derek was in front of him, hair windblown and face red from the cold. And Derek gave him a startled smile, one without teeth. He glanced down at the cart Stiles had been frantically wheeling down the corridor. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Christian?” he asked astutely. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh, um – yes.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“He thinks it’s funny.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>And Stiles was about to ask what he meant when Derek gestured to cart’s many odds and ends. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s not going to use any of this, is he?” Stiles hedged. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“He might.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Am I being hazed?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You could call it that,” Derek said, head ducking and smile growing as if he didn’t want anyone to see that he was capable of an emotion other than indifference. Stiles gnawed in the inside of his cheek. His mind whirled, hunting any place it could for something clever to say, something that might impress him, but there was nothing beneath the howling wind of his anxieties. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I haven’t seen you,” he said and instantly regretted it, sweat bubbling across his chest and brow. He had felt this horrible feeling once before as a child when he had spent all morning picking the largest, loveliest thistles he could find among the bedraggled weeds of his mother’s overgrown flowerbed to present to Lydia Martin. She had the grace, even at a young age, not to laugh at him as her friends had. She thanked him and took the thistles home and nothing had ever come of it. The last he knew she had moved to a far-off city, somewhere more glamorous where she could learn something useful than having children and keeping house. After that day, Stiles stopped himself fancying anyone the embarrassment was so much</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>That sloshing, sick feeling was uprooting his stomach now, his knees trembling and heart stumbling. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m making you uncomfortable,” Derek said suddenly, smile erased. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> mentioned her kind could sense changes in emotion, but Stiles – plainly put, he hadn't believed her beyond and he could see now why that was a piece of information he was foolish to dismiss. What else had Derek been able to sense? Stiles felt his pallor drain. He thought his feelings were his own when he laid down in Derek’s bedroll, but </span>
  <span>pressed</span>
  <span> so closely together had Derek known everything he was thinking? </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No, no you’re not,” Stiles stammered, trying and failing to cover his emotional tracks. Derek’s nostrils flared and Stiles couldn't say whether Derek was aware of it; aware he was analyzing the smells around him; trying to find a baring? It was strange and Stiles was</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t sure how to feel other than exposed, but he couldn’t shrink away from how fascinating the concept of it was. He swallowed and asked, “What do I smell like?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>If his people were shifters Stiles supposed there would be no call for describing a smell; Stiles wouldn’t have known where to begin to explain to someone what one of the lemons on his cart smelled like. Derek’s dark brow tensed and for a moment Stiles thought he had insulted him somehow. His lips parted ready to give an answer, but closed again, aborting whatever it had been. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>After a moment Derek told him, “Depends on how you’re feeling.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That is a painfully noncommittal answer." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s private smile returned, possibly aimed at himself. </span>
  <span>“When you’re happy you smell like rain,” he said at a near whisper, his head ducked again. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“…And when I’m not?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Like wormwood.”</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I imagine that’s how most people smell when they aren’t happy.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Depends on the person.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Right.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you like to go riding?” shot out of Derek abruptly and he looked just as astonished as Stiles to hear it. He tacked on, “Sometime,” in what Stiles guessed was an effort to quell any expectation obligating him to say ‘yes’.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not very good at it,” Stiles admitted. His father owned a horse, but unlike the collection of steeds in the richer stables in the Last Rest, his horse suited a purpose. It worked </span>
  <span>with</span>
  <span> John and needed rest like any working person would. Stiles would run errands with her very rarely but had not learned to comfortably ride her faster than a trot and never took her beyond the trails between his father’s house and the town proper. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>After she’d thrown John and broken her ankle in the process, the animal doctor put </span>
  <span>her down</span>
  <span>. He pushed the memory away. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll show you</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles answered immediately, “I’d like that.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>There were all manner of reasons he should have declined Derek’s offer and he would be delicate with their interaction when the time came, but all trepidation aside, the fact was that he wanted to spend time with Derek. He wanted it more than anything. It could have been Fox urging him on, baiting him into a situation he would regret. He had felt similarly when David would glance over him in church, when he would press the body of Christ to his tongue and his thumb would linger there on </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> lip. By the time he was turning in to the library the heat and smile were gone from his face. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He was silent while Christian puttered over his cart of wares</span>
  <span>. Silent while Christian mixed salt and water, murmured a prayer and then squeezed the concoction into his red-creased eyes. Silent when the rest of the items were squeezed and shaken and poured into a cocktail. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You wanted a drink?” he was sure he heard himself say it, even tucked so far back in a barren field of his mind. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm, yes,” Christian said loftily rubbing his bloodshot eyes and brandishing his glass, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>a drink</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>So, this was not the starting pistol of the next alcoholic gauntlet.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Is this part of my tutelage?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> wants me to tell you about the Wood,” Christian put blandly, setting down his drink long enough to strike a match and light a cigarette from a silver case he kept pocketed in his smart, mulberry waistcoat. Stiles could have looked quite a bit like Christian, close enough to be mistaken for cousins if someone had pulled him out like taffy when he was a child. Aside from his inexplicable white locks and height their similarities were concerting. Christian had the air of someone who had been cut and grafted into the Hale household, rather than that of someone who had sprouted here. How many people had been adopted as one of </span>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> projects?</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Unfortunately, as I tried to tell her, </span>
  <span>many times, </span>
  <span>I can’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>show</span>
  </em>
  <span> you anything. You have to look.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re serious?” <br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you think I don’t want to help you, then,” he chuckled, a rich, dark sound, “you would be correct. The Wood isn’t a place, it's a state of mind. It’s under that rugged-and-tormented exterior somewhere. I have every confidence in you.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve had this my entire life and you</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>re telling me I have to </span>
  <em>
    <span>look </span>
  </em>
  <span>harder?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Eyes wide and nodding emphatically Christian said, “The many secrets of the cosmos are underwhelming.” Peter liked to toy with people like a cat would a cricket, bat them about until their legs popped off, but Christian, he took amusement in wasting a person’s time. It had been a mistake to come here. He</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>d thought, naively, that understanding this </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span> that morphed his dreams and stalked him every hour of everyday would bring him enough stability he might reach for what he had seen in the kitchen. If anyone could help him, could empathize, surely it should have been this man. But he had left the kitchen that night a quixotic child and the world hadn’t any place for shiny ideals spun up from an empty and desperate desire. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>What did he know </span>
  <span>about</span>
  <span> what he</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>d seen? He had fooled himself into believing someone like Peter Hale </span>
  <span>could be </span>
  <span>capable of compassion; </span>
  <span>he had </span>
  <span>fooled himself into believing the man he chose to lay with would be anything other than a shell. His anger flushed round and round with nowhere to go, because who could he really be angry with other than himself? </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s nothing good in the world, is there?” he asked, and even that failed to denote any anger or sadness, only exhaustion. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“There isn’t,” Christian agreed and downed the remainder of his bourbon and lemon, “but that means there's nothing bad either,” his eyes wandered, hooded with drink and smoke, “I suppose that could comfort you if you care enough to be comforted.” He extended his cigarette case to Stiles and Stiles accepted. Christian laughed his charcoal laugh as Stiles coughed for a hard few minutes. His retching attracted the eyes of a few people still milling about in the aisles, but they were largely alone. The cathedral ceiling was a bowl of rosy, winter light above them, fractals of it shattering in the cut-glass pendants of the chandelier. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Something change your mind?” Christian asked, “You didn't give a flying monkey fuck about the Wood two weeks ago.</span>
  <span>” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought if I understood I could try to… belong?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Christian rolled his eyes, a frustratingly prevalent mannerism among the people living in Hale House, “My </span>
  <em>
    <span>God</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he groaned, “Let me spare you lengthy rumination: in relation to the Wood, you are a cog in a very old and vaguely turning machine. You could vanish and the mechanism would continue obliviously without you. Either decide to </span>
  <em>
    <span>be</span>
  </em>
  <span> here or don’t. You can spend years staring yourself in the mirror demanding explanations for your multitude of fracture lines, </span>
  <em>
    <span>or</span>
  </em>
  <span> you can embrace that you are a ruinous heap of human garbage and get on with your life.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>That’s your advice?</span>
  <span>” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Spicy</span>
  <span>.” Nothing Christian said came through genuinely. </span>
  <span>Speaking to him made Stiles inanimate, like a doll Christian was forced to speak to at the behest of a child. “I will say, though, that if you’re determined to stare harder into the Wood for Tally’s sake, the next time you hear Fox coming, don’t close your eyes. Try looking right at Him. That should do it. Or He’ll devour you. In which case, you can die knowing that you probably got what you deserved,” he winked, swirled the ice in his glass and in a puff of indigo smoke – he vanished. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles upturned his chair ripping to his feet, body coursing with fear. </span>
  
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Christian reappeared with a crack of violet </span>
  <span>light in the hall just beyond the library doors and Peter was there, leaned against the wall, already smirking. Brushing down his lapels and coat tails  – transporting one’s self through the Ether did attract an awful lot of dust for some unholy reason – Christian said with a sniff, “That ought to discourage anymore peeping,” and made his way down the corridor, with Peter looking pleased and following close behind. </span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Apple Blossom</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> spectacles slid down his nose as he worked tediously to repair the topstitch of Miss Laura’s favorite dinner gown. He had been told a game of cards had gotten wildly out of hand the previous night and by the stains and faint but pungent scent of liquor beaten into the fabric this seemed an accurate explanation. He’d had to have the gown laundered meticulously by the washer-woman before bothering to sit down and mend it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Laura brought the dress directly to him, rather than wait for her maid, Kira, to courier it for her and said something quick and arrogant about needing it on hand immediately. And Stiles had taken it from her without comment, all the while sighing an inward sigh on Kira’s behalf. Laura Hale possessed all the trappings of a lady of breeding and none of the substance of one. She entered a room grandly, demanding attention and then would storm out of it again without a care as to whether or not anyone in it had heard a word she had spoken. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>For this reason, Stiles worked diligently, but he didn't trouble himself enough to hurry in his task. Miss Laura would expect the garment returned within the hour and the sight of her wrinkled, indignant forehead when it was not finished yet would bring Stiles a rare ray of joy on such a dismal winter day. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>There was a knock on his door and Stiles called out that they should enter. Laura did not stand in the frame when he looked up; in her place, looking the height of consternation, was her younger brother. </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> heart kicked a few times.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr. Hale,” he squawked unattractively and remembered too late Derek disliked being referred to that way. In his hands Derek held a bunched-up bit of white fabric, one of his own shirts. He glared at it as if it had stolen money. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I tried to fix </span>
  <span>it.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles chuckled, “Why?” And in response, Derek Hale shrugged, trying maybe to appear unaffected by the mess he had undoubtedly made of things but flushing to a rosy hue despite himself. The sight made </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> ears roar</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>He held out his hand and Derek crossed the room to cede it. He'd somehow torn a long gash in the armpit having very nearly detached the entire sleeve and tried to reattach it with big, sloppy stitches. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When and where had he found a sewing kit? </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“This is a white shirt,” Stiles told him and his thick brow quirked, nonplussed, “Why would you use black thread?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you fix it or can’t you?” </span>
  <span> <br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll fix it if you tell me how it happened.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Doesn’t matter.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, but it does,” Stiles said lightly, eyes fond. Derek’s gaze fell to his mouth for a moment and a dab of incredulity left his features, though he remained cagey as ever. He sat heavily in the other chair at </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> table and looked unsure of what to do with his hands briefly before crossing his arms to settle the matter. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I was out running and it tore,” came from him eventually</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>Stiles held up the shirt by the cuff of its barely affixed sleeve and Derek’s lips pulled into a hard line. “I climbed a tree.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“For fun?” asked Stiles. He was no stranger to impulses that came with being unobserved, especially out of doors, but he was shocked Derek Hale gave into his compulsions. He seemed above that sort of thing, though as he thought it, </span>
  <span>it </span>
  <span>seemed absurd. The image his words instilled, one of Derek perched in the highest boughs of a pine, clothing ripped and stained, wind drying the sweat of his brow was fitting. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Derek told him smugly. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Not chasing a squirrel?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You find </span>
  <span>shifters</span>
  <span> amusing now?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Stiles purred, “not shifters.” When Derek caught his meaning, he dipped his head and smiled to himself. It made </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> body hum; he expected annoyance, not this, not a shared, private joke. He blathered, “I’ll have it done by tomorrow.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Good.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You can wear it when we go riding,” Stiles tacked on. His heart had been thudding along until now, sometimes roughly, sometimes nervously, but when Derek smiled at him without lowering his eyes, without lowering his face to hide it and the tips of his teeth appeared, white and sharp and straight, </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> heart stopped. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He should be wary of Derek Hale. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He should be distant.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He should be cautious and observant; objective. He knew there was something more to him, a darkened room where he kept the things that tormented him locked up and out of sight. He knew it. But as he lay awake in bed, staring up into the triangular beams that made up the eaves of his bedroom, he wondered for the first time if he really knew anything at all. He built up so many towering walls and their foundation was sunk in what he had seen and heard, how the people around him had treated him. There were barbs on those walls and no gates in or out. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek Hale was secretly selfish and cruel because every other human he had come into contact with had been and Stiles wanted nothing more than to be left alone, safely within the keep those others had helped him erect around himself. </span>
  <span>It was s</span>
  <span>uch a basic, childish reaction and one he could</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t shake. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He should keep away, needed to.  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>But he no longer wanted to. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The stable, the proper stable (the Hales were in possession of two and a separate carriage house) was a ways from the house. Stiles trekked out alone to it, wool scarf wrapped up over his chin and mouth the morning was so unforgiving. The path had been dug out earlier still, before the sun had risen, but was already filling in with a confectionary dusting of snow. Stiles often woke before the roosters stirred out of necessity; in Last Rest he’d held several jobs, especially after John was injured, that required he be out of bed and hauling hay bales or cleaning floors well before five o’clock in the morning. And he’d been spoiled by the Hales since then. He still strove to serve them, but had found himself waking later and later, meandering into his sewing room sometimes as late as the ninth chime. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek Hale was, apparently, not so contented to lie-in. Isaac Lahey had passed a note to Stiles, rousing him from sleep that morning while the sky was still a dark bruise. </span>
  <span>H</span>
  <span>alf-asleep, Stiles had pulled on the fur lined boots and exquisite long coat and gloves </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> had bought him – gifts he’d been flattered by and so proud to own he kept them on display more often then he dared wear them – and trudged out into the wintry dusk. He purposefully gave very little thought to how he had dressed himself as he walked. He had bundled up against the cold and nothing more. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He was thinking so very hard about not thinking </span>
  <span>he missed </span>
  <span>the rapid footfalls behind him until he was being pounced on and buried face-first into a snowbank. Manic, high-pitched laughter met his ears as he sputtered and flailed, trying to right himself. Cora continued to cackle at him, rolling around on the ground. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What the Hell?!” Stiles barked. He pushed himself to stand so quickly he miscalculated his footing and slipped again, on his rear this time. He let out a long plaintive breath and did not attempt to get up a second time, all of the fight going out of him. It was far too early and he was far too tired to do more than </span>
  <span>this</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When she was able, Cora giggled, “Isaac’s told me you’ve an appointment with my verbally challenged brother.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“So?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“So, I had to investigate.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Is attacking me considered investigating?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You looked as though you could use a shove,” she told him, nodding. And in a strange, Hale-like way, he grudgingly realized that she had been right. “He likes you very well</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think he’d appreciate you saying so,” Stiles informed her, refusing to let her embarrass him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m doing a charitable service,” she said, crossing her legs under the long hem of her dress, “He’d never tell you himself or if he did he’d make a mess of it. Did you </span>
  <em>
    <span>see </span>
  </em>
  <span>what he did to his shirt?” And she threw her head back with a howl of laughter. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles did get to his feet then, hot-faced and defensive on Derek’s behalf, “I don’t see anything wrong with him trying to take care of his things. You could stand to learn something, Miss Claw-Holes-In-All-Of-Her-Gloves.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She made a face at him and before he had time to react she was on him again, tackling him to the snow with her bizarre strength and a growl in her chest. He fought his hardest to throw her off, but she outmatched him easily until his limbs were pinned under her with no leverage. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re terribly weak,” she remarked; no sweat on her skin and no shortness of breath. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>human</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know about all that,” she chuckled and leaned down to smell along his jaw. He tried to stay as still as possible, fear tickling, and then she was rubbing her cheeks against his and he realized that he had seen this behavior a hundred times in passing since meeting her family. It had never been done to him until now. He could </span>
  <span>imagine his neighbors </span>
  <span>cring</span>
  <span>ing</span>
  <span> in his mind, Mrs. </span>
  <span>Māhealani’s</span>
  <span> nose wrinkle</span>
  <span>d</span>
  <span> in disgust. But it didn’t feel disgusting. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Cora gave him one last mischievous chuckle and then leapt off of him and bounded away back toward the house.  He stood to brush himself off, but his whole person was caked in white, his </span>
  <span>damn</span>
  <span> coat ruined before he’d made it to the stable</span>
  <span>. It </span>
  <span>should not have dampened his mood as much as it did. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He watched Derek in the corral for a time, leaning on the side of the barn. To his sensitive ears, there must have been too many sounds around him for him to hear </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> approach; trotting hooves, large, beating hearts, heavy breath. Stiles had not thought much on it until arriving here about how the Hales might interact with other animals. There were likely some that did not, prey animals or rodents or birds, but in that respect the Hales would be no different than a human family. The horses cantered this way and that as one, a small herd of four or five, all of them extremely well groomed with manes like </span>
  <span>women’s hair</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They played some kind of game insofar as Derek was chasing them, smacking their rumps when he caught up to them and if he stood still long enough, looking disinterested one of them would trot up to him and nip at his hair until he gave chase once more. He likely could have gone on like this for hours – probably did when there was nothing else to do – but at some point he became aware that he was being watched and hopped the fence in a single bound. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>For once, Derek’s jaw wasn’t set. This was one of those rare moments that he seemed unconstrained by whatever usually </span>
  <span>reserved him</span>
  <span>. He hadn’t cut his hair since Stiles had known him and it had grown out quite a bit; mussed from so much activity, dark and wavy and smelling like sweat, like </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles stowed his hands in his coat pockets.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Morning,” Stiles offered, unable to stave off the yawn that followed. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s easy countenance faded and Stiles struggled to identify what he could have done in the past few seconds to have disturbed him. His hands curled into fists inside his pockets. Like he was advancing on a deer that might take off, Derek edged closer to him, eyes a little unfocused and Stiles swallowed hard.   </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Is there something on my face?” Stiles jabbered. He hadn’t time for a full breakfast after Isaac woke him but had managed to slip a biscuit smothered in sweet cream butter and blackberry jam from the kitchen before hurrying on his way. Cora wouldn’t have told him if he’d spilled on himself, the imp. Derek did not answer him. He came well within </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> space; tantalizingly, inappropriately into his space. Inches apart Stiles heard him inhale a few times through his nose. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Even so close, when Derek muttered something frustrated under his breath Stiles only caught the rumble of it, an irritated growl that raised his skin. And then he got impulsive, reckless; a burst of Fox’s wildness sprinting through his veins. Stiles stepped to him, filling in the strip of air separating them and rubbed his cheek against Derek’s. His beard tickled </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> jaw. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles backed up awkwardly</span>
  <span>, lips thin and face patchy red with embarrassment. He cleared his throat, “</span>
  <span>Uhm</span>
  <span>, do – do you ride saddled or bareback?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek stared at him. His expression changed quickly, going wickedly bright the way his younger sister’s often did, as if he could run all day without tiring. Which, Stiles knew he could judging by the state of his boots; they seemed to spend more time with the cobbler then actually on his feet. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Which ever you prefer,” Derek said, voice and eyes wily. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Saddled,” Stiles said, licking his lips. This conversation pretended to be one thing while speaking to something… else. “I don’t think I have the strength to ride without one.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s head ducked when he smiled, as it so often did and Stiles tried not to be so affected by it but it was far too late for that now. Derek muttered, “We’ll have to fix that.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We will,” Stiles answered</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> and they held one another’s gaze for a</span>
  <span>n extra moment</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles was given a dappled mare named Day to borrow for the afternoon; the </span>
  <span>stable master</span>
  <span> insisted she was the best trained and most loved of them all, so safe even a child could ride her if only their legs could reach the stirrups. To a person of </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> particular in-coordination this meant nothing. Simply trying to mount the poor girl saw him up briefly, one boot hitched where it ought to be and then he was off balance and flailing ass-first to the ground. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek, already seated on his horse (without a saddle) turned away from him, pretending to cough, when he was trying his hardest not to laugh outright as the </span>
  <span>stable master</span>
  <span> helped Stiles to his feet. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Ok, girl, this time,” Stiles grunted, reaching again to hoist himself up. His coat was ruined and his boots too, all he had now was what little dignity he might win back by getting himself on the damned animal. It took a couple more determined tries until he was in the saddle, mouth taut and out of breath. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Shall we?” he panted electing to carry on as if he’d mounted her the first time without issue and flicked her reigns for good measure, not caring really where she decided to bring him. </span>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>They ride through the afternoon. They race along the valley floor kicking up snowy sprays.<br/></span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p><span>Derek</span> <span>walked him back to his rooms. They lingered by the doors for longer still talking quietly, though Stiles couldn’t recall what was said even a moment after parting. He only remembered the curl of Derek’s body leaned on the door frame, shielding him from the hall and how their breath mingled in the kissing distance between them. He remembered feeling himself grin in earnest for the first time in a long time. And later while he took tea by the bay window it still had not gone away. </span></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Black Math</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>There stood three pools of water. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They were still as mirrors and the shiny black of lacquered bowls. In each, Stiles saw a different image, three divergent paths from a single moment in time. He should look away, he thought, not because this was a dream or because he thought these visions </span>
  <span>were </span>
  <span>unreal. But because they </span>
  <em>
    <span>were</span>
  </em>
  <span> real. These three pools existed somewhere in the Wood, three lenses through which the forest watched the unravelling of all things. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>In the first reflecting pool he saw a dead wolf mounted on a pike surrounded by the kindling of a massive pyre that was still unlit. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>In the second, blood ran in torrents along a maze of cobble stones and mortar. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>And in the third, a house on a hill was a gash of red flame against the night sky. Common among these visions was a man Stiles did not know with eyes like coal and a mouth of gnarled, sharp teeth, the blood in his veins running like quicksilver under pale, papery skin. He was silver death; lye in a decanter of wine, silent and nameless and violent. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When Stiles turned, behind him stood a Harvestman and he knew it was the same one he had seen the day they came over the Wall, the one that had smashed its way through Mayor Hubbard’s house. Dozens of beady black eyes watched him, though it did not advance. He had no fear at seeing it here, could feel that it was not angered by his presence. It was blurred, a smudge of changing lines that could not quite come into focus no matter how hard he tried to see it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“How does it start?” Stiles asked. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Above him the Harvestman’s mandibles rustled, rolling like worried fingers. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t understand,” </span>
  <span>he</span>
  <span> told it hopelessly, but the creature would not speak more than this, more than the images it had already given him. And then it was gone and the pools too and left standing in the Wood with Stiles was Derek Hale. They were drawn together and Derek’s hands, his capable, beautiful hands, dove through </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> hair, his mouth and his tongue tasting like rose water. Stiles pushed him down, climbed over the length of him, trembling and gasping and kissing. And when he pulled away his lips just long enough to see his wolf, his prince, there was smeared blood on Derek’s lip, the dark hair of his beard matted down by the trail trickling from his nose. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> fingers came away from his own mouth stained with it and when his eyes moved past them, found Derek again, Derek Hale was dead. Dead and no longer human, but a huge black wolf with blood in its fur and nothing in its eyes. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles came to breathless, thrashing in his sheets. He toppled frantically to the floor, tears flooding from his eyes, hand cupped to his mouth to keep from screaming. He could shield himself from these dark apparitions while he was awake, but not while he was sleeping and the gates were swung wide and he </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He had killed those hens as a child, possessed by the Wood and his own buried anger, he had wandered into the night and done terrible things. And now he had seen what was going to come to pass and he was helpless. Derek Hale, his sisters, his mother, Peter; they were going to die. All of them. And the Wood loved them so well it had tried to warn them through its closest open channel except he didn’t understand, he couldn’t stop whatever it was that triggered their annihilation.  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles hugged his knees tight to himself, sucked in air through his nose over and over but there was never enough of it; Derek’s blood was still salty and vile on his tongue. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His door pushed open and he knew all of the noise would attract someone, but he wished it had not; he couldn’t stand to live in both places, one foot still in the vision and the other here, in Hale House.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stiles,” came the voice of his would-be caretaker and it was a voice that did not belong to </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> or Peter or God forbid, Derek himself. Bear-like hands held still </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> shuddering wrists. “You’re having a bad dream,” said the nightfall timbre. And then another pair of hands was there stroking down his back, her long sheet of corn silk hair loose from its braid and sweetly smelling of violets</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not real,” Boyd said to him again and this time Stiles latched on to his speaking, followed the thread of it away from himself, from his mind as it collapsed in; a star dying after looking too hard into the endless night. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Vern,” whispered Erica from somewhere above him.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Boyd answered quickly, “Stiles, I’ve sent Isaac to wake the doctor, you’re-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Please,” Stiles croaked, fear lancing through him, “Please not the doctor-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re freezing cold,” Boyd told him and as he said it, yes, he could feel the stiff, immobility of his fingers, the blanched, wind-beaten soreness in his face. There was water on the floor, everywhere, all around, icy puddles tracked in by his numb, blue feet. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I-I was outside,” Stiles muttered, affirming it for himself. But he couldn’t remember leaving bed… when had he laid down to sleep? </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stay with him,” Boyd </span>
  <span>instructed,</span>
  <span> and his heavy boots pounded the floor boards as he whisked out from the room.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t eat dinner,” said Stiles, pulling, pulling, pulling on his memories, peeling them apart. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Erica fixed him with a funny look, the sparse illumination in the hall putting shadows across her forehead. “You’ve been gone for hours,” she told him gently, far more gently than she had ever spoken to him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Gone,” he parroted, skin clammy with sweat and achingly, deathly cold. His shivering was growing worse, as if his body had forgotten how react to gelid air, to feet of snow and ice piled high against the world. Erica wrapped herself around him without a word, she could smell it perhaps, the wrongness of his body, its confusion. And he clung to her, her flesh burning white-hot in every place their bare skin met. Her temperature far exceeded Derek’s or </span>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> or Peter’s; she was furnace and Fox was snickering, its dry wheeze mocking </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> own blindness. He could see the Wood, but he could not see into it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s here, isn’t it?” whispered Erica, her heart rate spiking under </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> ear where it was pressed to her shoulder. She could sense Fox, the earthy-loamy perfume of the Wood, its rootlets reaching and curling into the room. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Y-yes,” Stiles told her and he braced, took another nose full of her summery scent and glared up directly at the mantle. The hideous beast sitting atop it was half masked by darkness, a </span>
  <span>mangey</span>
  <span> sack of pelt and bones and shiny animal retinas picked out in harsh relief. Stiles shook with cold, </span>
  <span>he </span>
  <span>shook with fear. Fox was still as it observed him, its breath occasionally dragging over a grotesque puff of laughter. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Looklooklook</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> heart leapt into his throat where it beat hard and fast, and Erica’s chest was drumming as well and… and –</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re pregnant,” Stiles breathed, tearing his eyes from Fox. She didn't respond immediately, only stared at him. A she-wolf would know when seed had taken root; her mate would know it and her pack. But how could Stiles know such a thing? She'd told no one; no, it was too early still. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What does Fox want with it?” she asked, stricken even to his eyes being blunted by darkness. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing,” came </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> fevered answered, “Nothing. Please, I – please don’t make see a doctor – I can’t,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You aren’t well,” Erica answered stoically. She no longer held him tightly, though, she did not completely back away from him either. Her head jerked upward at a sound that Stiles just barely heard, something like a slamming door, one that was very far away. “He’s coming,” she whispered and then Erica did separate herself from him and got to her feet, back straight and arms at her sides. Glancing down at his half-catatonic, half-trembling state she offered, “He wouldn’t harm you.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> mind reeled; </span>
  <em>
    <span>Derek</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He wasn’t dead, the crooked-toothed man hadn’t come yet, there was no blood, no fire, Derek Hale was alive. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Footfalls crashed up the stairs outside of his room and Stiles was pushing his partly frozen body to stand, hobbling to the door and Derek met him</span>
  <span> there</span>
  <span>, eyes burning blue fire. There was no man in his gaze, only the wolf, only the prince of the Wood. He didn’t speak as he threw off his coat and crowded into </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> space, stepped him back to plaster wall without laying a hand on him. Erica slipped from the room, keeping her eyes low and away, unchallenging of the feral beast wearing Derek’s skin. Stiles should never have stayed away, he should have crawled into Derek’s bed every night he could, because seeing him now, breathing hard, flushed, terrified, it hurt more than the leeching winter, more than the sores on his tongue. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek Hale gave a brutal grunt, his nostrils flaring, his hands trembling by his sides. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Stiles told him, pleading though he didn't know what for, “I can’t remember.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s head dropped a bit, his labored breathing more evident in the rise and fall of his shoulders and Stiles had never known him to be easily winded. “Stiles,” bit out of him. His glowing gaze scraped the floor. He might not have understood what drove him here or he might have known exactly why he was reacting this way. And finally, Stiles thought that he might know it too and words would be meaningless. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles butted his forehead to Derek’s uncertainly at first and then insistently, demanding attention, demanding warmth and Derek growled again, a sound that was softer now, exhausted and worried and scared. Stiles pushed at him and Derek was still for a time until he began following and meeting and chasing </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> face. He only tolerated this for so long before shoving Stiles to the wall, palm flat to his clavicle. He was trying to control himself and Stiles could see it now, that he had been keeping himself so composed, so in line that it pained him. It wasn't coincidence Stiles hadn't seen much of him in past weeks. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His self-control was fleeting now, lasting only long enough to hold Stiles away from him before vanishing and Stiles felt something, some listless, waving piece of himself snap into place when it did. Derek flattened him against the wall, rubbed their cheeks together, ground into him, ran starving hands up and down </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> thighs, his hips, pushed up under his loose night shirt and across his stomach. And his delirium was a catching disease. Stiles couldn’t stop himself sliding, gyrating against him, hands groping, begging for heat and closeness, broken noises in his throat and then Derek’s mouth was on his bare shoulder, kissing and lapping at the skin where his shirt had slipped down his arm. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Death could not blow out such an intense, living blaze, could not take Derek Hale from him. Derek’s tongue made a burning line across his collar to his throat and there suckled and nipped until </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> gasps were sobs, loud and honest. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Der</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Stiles moaned, words unable to make any more sense of </span>
  <span>his </span>
  <span>name than that. Derek’s arms scooped him off him feet, held the backs of his thighs and kept him there, pinned between the wall and a pillar of muscle. Drunk with the feeling of it, of being wanted, hungered for, Stiles eyes circled the ceiling seeing nothing as he whined. Derek’s sucking turned to biting, sharp teeth sinking into </span>
  <span>pinkened</span>
  <span> flesh and Stiles fingers constricted, strangling his shoulders, but the pain was quickly receding into a thrumming, pleasurable sting. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles murmured something incomprehensible even to himself but it drummed up enough sudden fear that he cried out, louder, “Wait! Derek, wait!” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>And Derek was immobile, chest heaving against him with hot breath.</span>
  <span> He struggled with obedience, his lips parted and pressed under </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> jaw</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We – we,” Stiles mouthed the word soundlessly a few more times, his forehead dropping to Derek’s shoulder. He was so fucking cold. It was making him slow, sending hard pangs through his arms and legs. “We </span>
  <span>have</span>
  <span> to leave,” he managed. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Derek billowed, lost and confused, his eyes glowing still with blinding blue light. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>I have to – to talk to Christian,” Stiles pressed. He disentangled himself and Derek did not fight him or hold him down. Until he was free he didn't realize he'd been braced for such a thing. He wanted to believe nothing could take Derek away, but something was going to – they couldn’t lose themselves yet, couldn’t fall so deep that the return was murky and impassable. He hated every burning second of it, of pulling away from the feeling of Derek’s weight, his firm grip. And Derek was receding into himself. Any hurt he felt was a </span>
  <span>quickly covered flash</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You have a fever,” he said too calmly, following Stiles closely, but not hindering him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, I know I do, I – </span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span>!” Stiles shouted. Erica was not waiting for them in the hall and he couldn’t blame her distancing herself, but Isaac, ever loyal, stood rigidly to the wall, hands folded behind his back. Shocked, wide eyes at </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> dishevelment, his nearly translucent and torn night shirt, regarded them and he said nothing. Those eyes flicked to Derek searchingly, though Stiles couldn’t say and didn't want to know what they found there. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Where’s Christian? I need to speak with him!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know –,” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Where’s his room?” Stiles demanded upon suddenly realizing that in a house so large he’d never thought to going looking, let alone ask. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll show you,” Derek said, briskly setting off down the corridor and tugging Stiles along by his hand. They reached the door in a matter of twists and turns and before Derek could stop him Stiles was shouldering through it to find Christian reclining on a camelback sofa. Kneeling in front of him was a girl Stiles had seen tending the winter garden in the mornings, her breasts hanging bare from her unlaced neckline, Christian’s cock clutched in her hand. Both looked alarmed to see them there so abruptly, though neither of them moved. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles gawked at them. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“O joy, they’ve found you,” Christian sighed, lazily swirling the brown liquor in his snifter glass. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>But Stiles had nothing more than an appalled glare for him in response. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>ll wait</span>
  <span> out—</span>
  <span>,” Derek said hurriedly. He was beat red when Stiles finally tore his gaze from the adulterous scene playing out before them. And before they could take a step Peter Hale was striding in, shirtless, decanter in hand. Derek froze solid, the scarlet of his pallor shifting to fury red. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He snapped, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>This is where you’ve been</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His uncle’s brow arched, “You – you do </span>
  <em>
    <span>see</span>
  </em>
  <span> what’s going on in here?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Christian curled his fingers in a sultry sort of wave. To the girl on her knees he encouraged, “Please don’t feel the need to censor yourself on their account.” Peter came to the back of the couch and leaned in to run a rough hand through Christian’s curls and suck in a lungful of his scent. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stiles is the picture of health,” Peter said and then he caught a true look at Stiles, perhaps for the first time, and his nose wrinkled, “Well he’s not dead.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> is still out looking, the whole pack is still looking, and you’ve been </span>
  <em>
    <span>here</span>
  </em>
  <span>?!” Derek shouted and Stiles winced at the sound. He called her by her name rather than ‘mother’; doing so in front of Peter would only illicit ridicule. Peter displayed his annoyance by drinking directly from the crystal decanter in his fist. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“The whole house is empty, have you any idea how </span>
  <em>
    <span>rare</span>
  </em>
  <span> that is?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Christian griped. The girl had gone back to her vigorous work as if she were not being watched, or it may have been because of the extra eyes on her. And none of this fazed Stiles as it would have months ago. There was something specifically unsexual about what he was seeing. The alcohol, the soft cushions spread around the room, the gently snapping fire and gilt tribute platters left on every table suggested something higher than merely slaking lusts. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>With his feet and legs aching and his skin chilled still, Stiles had to fight a quick onset of exhaustion. He wanted to lay by the fire until he thawed; he wanted Derek to lay there with him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Swallowing hard on the lump in his throat, Stiles croaked, “The Wood-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Fire,” Christian said, eyes sparkling. His chest swelled when he gasped. The gardener’s hands were claws constricting on his thighs, her head bobbing more hastily between his legs. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Hale House was on fire,” Stiles nodded, more than a little mesmerized by them. The air here was almost viscous with power. He’d misjudged what was going on and so had Derek. Peter caught his changed expression, one of sudden understanding no matter how fleeting it was. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Sex is a powerful magic,” Peter said. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“He saw it too,” Stiles muttered, “the pools in the forest.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What,” Derek asked. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>We want a better look</span>
  <span>,” Peter purred, setting down the decanter and sauntering closer. Stiles couldn’t back away. “You'</span>
  <span>re uniquely suited to help him, Fox Child.” His cold blue eyes went to his nephew, a smirk as much in them as on his mouth. “You can hide your feelings from Stiles but not from me.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek lips were a tight line over a tighter jaw when Stiles looked back at him. Peter was treading impeccably precarious ground and for once Stiles could grasp what it was passing between them. Peter’s long fingers laid across </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> shoulders and Derek growled instantly, though he did nothing to stop it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“A truly chaotic force is on its way here, nephew,” Peter went on, “when it arrives it will burn this house to the ground. Christian’s seen the white horse of death but he can't see more than the tarot allows without an open channel.” He gently squeezed Stiles shoulders, and said dark and sweet, “I know the thought of it races through you like it does me.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek lip curled, “You can’t force him-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not denial,” his uncle chuckled, “Forcing him would be pointless, he has to be willing.” He ducked down enough that he could press his mouth teasingly to </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> ear and still Stiles refused to drop Derek’s gaze. “</span>
  <span>You wouldn’t hesitate if you could smell Derek like I do. He wants to watch.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles shrugged him off, “You’re vile.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“i am,” Peter huffed, more annoyed, somehow, than Stiles was feeling. Annoyed, but not embarrassed; that was where their emotions diverged. He was not surprised to discover Peter viewed him this way; that he would in every way other than say it directly imply Stiles was as promiscuous as the stereotypes. Even if he didn't mean whatever sexual act he had in mind for himself, the result was the same. Those who gave into Fox’s mania did so to suit purposes like this, or so he’d been told. If they didn't outright prostitute themselves for survival, some fancied themselves oracles and soothsayers. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I know enough-,” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No, Stiles, you </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Do you really think my sister’s interest in you was based solely </span>
  <span>on</span>
  <span> the goodness of her heart?” Peter scoffed, “You think that because we spent our childhoods tied to a cellar wall she took you in to </span>
  <em>
    <span>spare</span>
  </em>
  <span> you that pain?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Peter, </span>
  <em>
    <span>stop it</span>
  </em>
  <span>-,” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, really, Derek just </span>
  <em>
    <span>shut up</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Peter barked so abruptly Stiles flinched, “This has gone on long enough. Stiles, we’ve known about your connection to the Wood since I first saw you gutting pigs, we can sense it, </span>
  <em>
    <span>smell the ripeness </span>
  </em>
  <span>coming off of you. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> likes to convince herself that you came to us only because of our charity, but not even she can deny keeping you close, you, an open door to the Wood, would repay us in spades. You know what’s coming; the vision you saw was so real you tried to walk to the forest </span>
  <em>
    <span>in your sleep.</span>
  </em>
  <span> If you want to repay her for her kindness than do this for us: tell us what this thing coming to kill us is.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles stared at Derek who stared back, but for once there was no drawn curtain to hide his feelings. “Am I here because I’m a Fox boy or because I have visions?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stiles</span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span>,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that why she asked me about the town that first night? Because she wanted her fortune read? She wanted me to tell her if your trading company would be profitable in Last Rest?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>This time when Derek said his name it came out of him like a beggar, “</span>
  <span>Stil</span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span>,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>If I had told her she would do well would we have left at all?”</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We try to keep a respectful distance from the Harvestmen,” Peter put in, dripping amusement that made </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> hands ball into fists, “We likely would have left regardless. But </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> insisted on nudging you in the right direction rather than purchasing you from your father. I was prepared to pay handsomely for you; Mr. Stilinski would not have had to work another day in his life. </span>
  <span>He c</span>
  <span>ould have hired a good live-in nurse if he desired.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You knew?” Stiles asked of Derek, “Did </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> send you after me after the Harvestmen came?” He wanted to sob the words, but no longer had the capacity to, “Did she tell you to make sure I made the right choice?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Not in so many words,” Peter put in, “but, yes, that was the gist of it, wasn’t it?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s mouth was unbroken and his eyes full. He pled with Stiles silently and if he were Cora, if he could be bothered to care at all about the muted plight of Derek Hale, maybe Stiles would have given him something in return. But he couldn’t. This was the darkness he’d known not to approach, and yet he had done it anyway. Derek wasn’t cruel for the sake of it, he was incapable of thinking for himself, of doing anything other than what he was told. This manipulation would have gone on as long as it possibly could have and Derek wouldn’t have confessed a word of it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t care if </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> told you to do any of it,” came out of Stiles, “If you had any feelings for me at all, you could’ve been honest with me.” And he hated with every strand of his being that of them all, Peter Hale had been the most forthcoming. Derek said nothing when anything but silence might have absolved him. He kept begging quietly, the cords in his throat stiff and fluttering and full of words that never made it into the room.  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When Stiles couldn’t stand to look at him a moment longer, he said to Peter, “Will you </span>
  <span>still </span>
  <span>send money to my father?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Certainly</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>I trust you understand what it would mean for me to do so.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I do.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter glided away from him to jot down a quick bill of sale at his desk. When he returned, he handed it to Stiles for his inspection. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You may keep that until the sale </span>
  <span>is</span>
  <span> finalized.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“My father won’t agree.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Details,” Peter shrugged. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles glanced over his shoulder to find Derek no longer standing in the doorway. The entrance was bare and black in the hall beyond. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Disrobe, if you would,” Peter instructed him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles did as he asked because he was hurting, because he knew what he was and was almost relieved that the fantasy had sizzled away to nothing. He had wanted so badly to believe it any pain he felt now </span>
  <span>that </span>
  <span>he knew all of it was a fabrication of his own doing. He knew better than this.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter was clucking at the girl, shooing her away and she obeyed without protest, Christian’s cock falling from her mouth red and swollen. He ordered her to lock the doors so that there would be no more intrusions. When they clacked gently shut the eddies of energy lazily leaking from the room were brought into a close, closed circuit putting </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> hair on end. Despite his own misery, whorls of vaporous power sent his blood coursing and his heart racing. It sprayed over his skin li</span>
  <span>ke mist of hot oil</span>
  <span>. Peter eyed him. He quietly watched </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> body swell as he petted Christian’s hair. Sweat dribbled down </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> chest to his navel and it sent a chill up his spine. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Behind him the gardener had sunken to the floor, her breasts heaving with labored breath. She had been under the influence of this room far longer than he and slick was dripping between her legs. Braced back against the doors she arched off them, a greedy hand going to her clit while her other clutched at her nipple. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah,” Peter said finally, “mustn’t touch.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The girl mewled at his words, but again she obeyed. Still her sex spit glistening pearls despite her until a dark spot of stained carpet appeared under her. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Has anyone other than that cunt David </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span> fucked you before, Stiles?” Peter asked conversationally. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  <span> The incense and the heat were getting to him. How long until he was reduced to what the gardener was? Already his knees were weakening; his cock fattening with each passing moment, tightening and starting to wet at its tip without a hand being laid on him. It was Christian, he realized lost somewhere in his haze, that was doing this. Magic was crackling around him in a way Stiles had never seen it act in the presence of the Hales. He was more than they were, more in tune with the force that connected them all to the Wood. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Lay down,” Peter ordered</span>
  <span>. There was only Peter’s voice, it was the only thing he was meant to hear. Stiles eased onto his back before the couch atop a nest of cushions </span>
  <span>by the fire</span>
  <span>. Dr. Hadley would have been pleased to see him so obedient. Peter knelt beside him and purred, “Spread your legs for me.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles did. As they fell apart, Fox was there standing and drooling, watching. The starved, emaciated </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span> it had been was filled in a little more, it’s pelt a little shinier and it’s eyes a little clearer. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“If you want to stop,” Peter went on, eyes taking in the length of </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> body, “you must say so. We won’t accomplish </span>
  <span>any</span>
  <span>thing if you’re unwilling. Well, nothing productive.” When his eyes met </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> they were – fond. It was so unexpected Stiles felt himself go rigid. This was not a side of Peter he would ever see outside of this precisely controlled environment. The feeling of safety sweeping over him was just as unexpected and unnerving as the soft, doting set of Peter Hale’s features. Peter laid a flat palm in the center of </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> chest and stroked down the center of him, making sure to give attention to his painfully tight nipples before moving on </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles </span>
  <em>
    <span>moaned. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Your body will behave differently here,” Peter told him, voice rasping in his throat, “You’ve never fucked in the Wood. All that's </span>
  <span>required of you is to relax.” Air tripped out of Stiles suddenly when Peter pushed a finger inside of him. It had hurt so badly when David had thrust into him he’d bitten through his lip and found dried blood down the backs of his thighs when he’d gotten home. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Calm down,” Peter cooed, rubbing small circles on his belly while his fingers worked themselves into Stiles. He was so tense that it took a few moments to realize that this was not painful at all; sudden, filling, but not painful. His eyes fluttered and his breath began to even itself out. “That’s it,” Peter said smugly, “This will be easy on you,” and another finger joined the first. He could feel it now, the slick gushing impossibly, the way it leaked out of the girl.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“P-,” Stiles groaned, “Peter-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to ask for it, I’ve already told you.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Please-,” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Please what?” he teased and crooked his fingers in such a way that they sent sparkling pleasure radiating through </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> bones. He sobbed out a noise he’d only heard animals make and his spine levered off its cushions. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Pl-ease, Peter, fu</span>
  <span>ck—</span>
  <span>,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to do something for me first,” Peter answered. At this Christian managed to pry himself from the sofa. He got onto his knees and elbows beside Stiles; his limbs quaking. “Go on,” Peter encouraged, helping Stiles to sit up, “Go on,” And he repeated it with such reverence that Stiles had to look at him. Peter watched as Christian shivered, his hips pushing back in wanting; for the expression Stiles found there, he thought they could've been in church. Stiles forgot about his own needs, or rather, the artificial urgency of the magic tugging on him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Leaning into Peter for support he said, “You – said you never – ma—</span>
  <span>rried</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I didn’t,” Peter replied and ran a thumb along </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> jaw. He nodded Stiles on, toward Christian, he helped Stiles slip inside of him and this time, he did have the capacity for tears. They </span>
  <span>rolled</span>
  <span> down his nose as Peter guided his hips with patient hands</span>
  <span>; fingers thrust in and out of him, setting his rhythm as he buried himself into Christian.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s it,” Peter whispered. His free hand flatten</span>
  <span>ed</span>
  <span> across </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> stomach.</span>
  <span> He was full to bursting, taking and giving, wetness squelching around member and running hotly down his thighs. Nipples aching, pounding with each thrust, Stiles groped them for relief. As he rubbed them, they gained tension until something slippery spilled through his fingers. The sensation made him cry out; he nearly came as the warm liquid skated down his stomach. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Not yet," said Peter, sensing neither of them would last much longer. He took hold of Stiles's waist and agonizingly slowly prodded his cock against Stiles's opening. Stiles lost his rhythm immediately. He couldn't focus on what he wanted more. If he tried to press himself into Peter, he lost the brain-breaking heat and tightness of Christian. Peter palmed his chest, both hands groping and milking the slick dribbling from Stiles's nipples; the sensation of release stunned him, broke him, he was petrified with pleasure, mouth shudder open and then Peter push fully in, his cock bigger than Stiles thought he could withstand, far bigger than should have been possible. It should have torn him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"That's it honey," murmured Peter, thrusting, clipped thrusts and Christian doing the same, the two of them overpowering his senses.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Verdant power poured out of Peter, through Stiles, into Christian, and it was a mistake Derek wasn’t here with him; that he’d let his anger speak instead of his realer feelings. He was scared and disappointed and he let that chip away at what was beginning to matter more to him than his own well being. This was his secret, he warred against himself, harder than he fought for what he loved.</span>
  <span> <br/></span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Fox lay under the ferns, curled into a ball. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>When he lifts them away, the animal stirs and it is whole: a young kit sprinkled with dew drops. </span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Stop Breaking Down</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>T</span>
  <span>he snow grew higher. The house was decorated for Yule but would not celebrate until they were all together. They waited for the carriage to pass the gate on the hill for weeks, but it never came. A letter arrived late letting the family know they would be delayed again and all was well. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> held the letter without reading it for a long while before laying it on her desk. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She called for Ms. Reyes and instructed her to take down the wreaths and garlands. When she was alone again, she laid her head in her hands. </span>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Isaac had an exhausted rind on him he couldn’t see but everyone else seemed to be able to. The laundress constantly reminded him of it. Even Ms. Hale noticed, though she said nothing, just gave him that forlorn glance she seemed to always seemed to </span>
  <span>give</span>
  <span> these past couple months. God in Heaven he hated it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He wouldn’t compare the gloom settled on the house like a nesting bird to the place he had come from, but the same sorts of feelings worked up and out of him anyway.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He sat on his creaky metal bed and hiked up his pant leg. The rutting ire was making his stump ache all the time now and no amount of willow tea seemed to help. Doc Deaton insisted it was a phantom pain, not really there and his brain was playing tricks. Isaac’s brains were plenty capable of knowing real pain, but he’d bitten his lip about it. Deaton was cold and calm as a frozen pond – there was no </span>
  <span>point</span>
  <span> in arguing with him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He unhooked the straps of his prosthetic and unrolled the lambskin sleeve </span>
  <span>Erica’d</span>
  <span> sewn him to stave off the sores he got wearing it. As he massaged the dully throbbing muscle left just below his knee, Vernon pushed open his door. He hadn’t bothered to latch it. With everyone in Hale House shuffling about like the undead, he </span>
  <span>decided he may as well leave it open</span>
  <span>. Some of the footmen and housemaids took to smoking in the dormitory halls and playing cards when the work was slow and the weather frigid. More often than not they came looking for Isaac to round out their numbers. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Boyd took a seat in Isaac’s desk chair and reclined like all his stuffing had gone flat. Without his pristine housekeeper’s uniform on he looked a bit like a used-up corn husk doll. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span> “I heard it's been bothering you,” Boyd said, eyeing his stump. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Can’t do much about it.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“How is he?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>This was the only reason Vernon ever came down here. Isaac was the only one that loved Derek Hale as much as he did. Except Isaac was sick of all the wallowing, both Derek’s and Boyd’s. He didn’t dignify Vern with an answer. He knew very well how Derek was and how miserable he was making everyone around him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I saw him at the window yesterday,” Boyd said anyway, “He’s thin-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“<em>You think that’s my fault</em>?”  </span>
  <span> <br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“N</span>
  <span>o, </span>
  <span>I thought he might have spoken to you. You spend the most time with him.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Well he hasn’t,” Isaac snarled, going back to kneading his leg, “He don’t talk and he don’t eat and I practically don’t have a job.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Vernon gave a curt nod and stood from the chair. He left the room without any more chatter. He knew well and good when to stop pestering a person. If he spoke at all and there were times when Isaac wished he’d not, it was always so </span>
  <span>incisive</span>
  <span>. It was infuriating, especially as of late. Not that it seemed to matter to anyone anymore, but Isaac had told Ms. not to meddle when they’d asked his opinion after that first dinner. He’d warned her and so had Master Hale; they, all three of them, had come to age as Stilinski had be it in bondage or a locked room. She thought she knew enough to make the boy’s choices for him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac’s mouth compressed as he thought it, his fingers digging in deeper than usual. He laid back on his mattress, stowing all thoughts of the Hales for the moment so that he might catch some shut eye before suppertime. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Should I bring up a plate for you?” Isaac asked blandly as he gathered up articles of clothing that had been strewn about the room. Sometimes Derek went days without changing his clothes and some days, like this one, everything he owned wound up on the floor or draped over the furniture. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We agreed you’ll eat once a day and I won't dog you about it,” Isaac told him. His bed </span>
  <span>was</span>
  <span> a mess. Gouges left by five fully extended claws ran the length of the sheets and there were feathers here and there, though for the life of him, Isaac couldn’t see where the pillow itself had ended up.  Perhaps they’d popped out of the mattress. He inspected the gashes to find that, thankfully, he’d not raked so deeply as Isaac had been </span>
  <span>led</span>
  <span> to believe. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek emerged from behind the dressing screen, pulling out the cuffs of his shirt from his dinner jacket. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s that?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m – dressed for dinner.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Made a mess of your cravat is whatcha done.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He set the heap of clothing piled up in his arms on the ottoman at the foot of the bed and made his way over to where Derek was glaring holes into his neckband before the standing mirror glass. Isaac slapped his hands away and Derek grunted at him but held still all the same. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve told you not to dress yourself,” Isaac sighed, tugging the cravat free altogether; if it had any hope of looking presentable, he’d have to start all over again. “Your hair’s awful. You might not care if your sisters poke fun at you, but I’m the one who comes off bad for letting you socialize look'n like a hobo.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>After he’d gotten the tie-pin steadfast, he sat Derek down and tried his hardest to drag a comb through his hair without giving his master a bald spot. He pulled a pair of scissors from his apron once he’d worked out the kinks. Still Derek didn't fight him, though his face was hardened with petulance as Isaac set about trimming down </span>
  <span>his split </span>
  <span>ends. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Wouldn’t kill you to take God-damn bath,” Isaac muttered</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It might.” Isaac caught his eye in the mirror and the expression he saw there, for the first time in weeks, wasn’t completely desolate. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>I assumed </span>
  <span>you’d die in here.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek shrugged. Isaac hadn’t expected an explanation. He’d never known why Derek did anything he did. Derek likely didn’t have much reasoning behind his actions either. He was tapped into Wolf’s instinct in way the others, including Isaac, weren't. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“There's company tonight,” Isaac said, “Ms. had a pig slaughtered this afternoon and there's a hunt tomorrow mornin'. She’ll be shocked to a early grave to see you at either.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Once he had returned Derek’s hair to an acceptable length he swept it back, he set it with pomade. Tucking his shears back into his apron and going to collect the pile of clothing Isaac said, “Change into your Wellingtons 'fore going downstairs and don't embarrass me.” He’d tried being soft on Derek Hale when one of these moods took, tried gently getting him back on his feet; fucking pointless. Derek </span>
  <span>had</span>
  <span> to be told, not coddled. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>All of the tension went out of Isaac’s back once he was out of the room. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They found him four years ago in the spring.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His father had crammed him into a barrel and nailed it shut. Ms. herself gave him the bite, but his leg was too far gone, the tissue already dead and rotting. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Deaton amputated the next day in a barn with no drugs, only a cask of whiskey and Derek Hale </span>
  <span>to hold </span>
  <span>him down. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span> When he’d recovered and learned to walk on his false leg Derek yelled at him to speak up, stand straight, stop shaking for the love of God!</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t keep bringing plates back to the kitchen, Ms.-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Where’s the paper?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s, it’s on the bar, Mr. Hale-.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Five hundred </span>
  <span>dollars? That can’t be right,” Derek muttered</span>
  <span> at a sheaf of paper</span>
  <span>, crossing the room toward the morning spread Isaac had put out in the sitting area. He took no care to mind the splashing rim of the coffee cup. “What is this?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Breakfast-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t eat breakfast. Someone must have told you.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, but, Ms. Hale says you have to-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You aren’t speaking to </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>, you’re speaking to me. I don’t eat breakfast.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac’s jaw screwed shut and then, “Yes, but-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you capable of starting a sentence without ‘yes, but’?” Derek sighed, as he picked up a scone, sniffed it and then tossed it back onto the table; it landed dully somewhere on the runner.   </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr. Hale,” Isaac tried and his skull lit up hotly when Mr. Hale cut him off.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Derek,” Derek said to his newspaper, “clear this up. What is the point of you if you can’t follow orders? Maybe </span>
  <span>Thalia can give </span>
  <span>you to a groundskeeper. You probably like being outside</span>
  <span>; y</span>
  <span>ou're barely passing </span>
  <span>as human</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m, just – I'm trying to, I can’t-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>With a disgusted hitch in his lip Derek glanced over him as if he never really bothered to take much of a look before, “Did one of those nails</span>
  <span> go through </span>
  <span>your skull?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Just,” claws and fur and anger, “Just, I,” he'd felt the new presence inside of him, let it out in the ecstasy of the full moon to run and howl, but he kept a safe distance from it in his mind. The Wolf sustained him from afar, sitting patiently at the edge of the woodland. It pulled him in now, and he shouted, heat in his eyes, “JUST SHUT UP!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek stared at him for a short, rebellious couple of seconds before stiffly falling into his seat. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When he cleaned his plate, he went to where Isaac stood in the corner waiting to take his used dishes and put a hand on the back of Isaac’s neck. Derek chuffed in his hair, let Isaac rub </span>
  <span>against</span>
  <span> his throat. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek Hale wasn’t cold and difficult because he delighted in </span>
  <span>it </span>
  <span>or couldn’t be persuaded to care. </span>
  
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><span>They did</span><span>n’</span><span>t remark on his sitting in the dining room. His mother’s eyes were wide and then she smiled, but she knew better than to tease him. His sisters gathered in their seats without so much as a second glance. Isaac poured him wine and gave him an arched brow, commenting</span> <span>on how strange the silence was. His family was many things, though not typically, were they completely quiet for any </span><span>length</span><span> of time. Derek was content to sip at his </span><span>wolfsbane</span><span> wine without disturbing the delicate dining room</span><span> hush</span><span>. </span></p><p><span>He knew better than to </span><span>keep</span> <span>alcohol</span><span> in his rooms, </span><span>no matter his mental state</span><span>. Drinking alone unravel</span><span>ed</span><span> him more than he could stand, not when he had responsibilities beyond his misery; receipts and permits and finances to keep in order for the Company. His work was all that encouraged him not to let go altogether and become a bootless profligate like his uncle. After so long in isolation, the taste of wine</span><span> was something he’d forgotten to miss</span><span>. </span></p><p>
  <span>“You smell like parchment,” Cora commented insipidly as she fiddled with her teaspoon. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Cora, how</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>s your sewing coming?” Laura asked. Maybe she thought interjecting would spare Derek from having to answer. As if he required a reason not to </span>
  <span>participate</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Sewing is fucking idiotic, sister-mine</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>S</span>
  <span>eems</span>
  <span> like</span>
  <span> everything you fail horribly at is fucking idiotic.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mother, this is why you mustn’t allow Uncle Peter to travel,” Cora said, “Laura’s head is starting to bloat.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“If I hear one more vulgarity out of either of you, I’ll have you confined to your rooms,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> said. His mother’s words were hard as the ever were, but she was only partly in the room with them. Her mind was elsewhere. Derek could have dropped a plate on the floor and even if it shattered, he doubted she would have </span>
  <span>looked up</span>
  <span>. She saw him looking and he had to avert his eyes to his place setting. He knew he had the same tired, drawn expression and couldn’t stand to look into the infernal mirror of someone he loved. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Not until he had gotten himself very drunk. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The double doors swung open and in strode Vernon, his self-presentation far above what </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> required of him, certainly in such an informal setting with so many rooms empty. He snapped his heels together and bowed before announcing that </span>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> guests had arrived. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek </span>
  <span>hiked</span>
  <span> himself out of his chair to stand respectfully. Vernon was so very diligent it felt fairly disrespectful not to match him. Two women entered the dining room and Derek’s eyes shot to his mother. He hurried around the table to help his Aunt Catherine to her seat. She walked with a cane and had done so since before Derek had ever known her. Her scent hit hard because it was so unexpected. One like family, but flavored by her home, the smells unique to the plot of forest maintained by the family trust: the Hale Preserve. She rarely left her cottage due to her condition.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter had been the youngest of the siblings and Catherine had sustained a permanent injury protecting him as a girl. She wasn't </span>
  <span>like her siblings </span>
  <span>and she never healed quite right. There were mud stains on the hem of her plain dress left over from her managing her rows of winter radishes. No amount of fussing from her nieces and nephew, servants or even </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> could keep her from activity. She refused to sit still.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Catey</span>
  <span>,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> beamed, leaning in once her sister was seated. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Catherine waved her off and tugged on Derek’s lapel so that he would bend, “Have you gotten through the books I recommended?” she asked, terse though he couldn’t imagine what reason she ever had to be. He nodded. “Good boy, </span>
  <span>get</span>
  <span> me </span>
  <span>whiskey</span>
  <span>.” And she released him. On the far wall, Isaac’s eyes rolled around in that way Peter’s always did. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Me too</span>
  <span>,” said the second woman</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Gabriella,” he choked</span>
  <span>. T</span>
  <span>hey embraced quickly before Aunt Catherine could gripe that there was still no glass in her hand. Derek went to the wet bar, mind buzzing with static. As he poured he saw Isaac and Gaby exchange darting, shy looks that swiftly broke apart. Isaac’s shoulders stiffened and his Adam’s apple bobbed. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Conversation picked up at the table between the women and Derek used the brief diversion to shoot an expectant glance at his valet. Isaac ignored him to the best of his ability. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He returned to set down the glasses and then found his seat. If he’d not been so preoccupied with himself, maybe he would have been told sooner who was coming to call, or more importantly, why. It was too late now for him to discretely pull Isaac aside. Though Isaac had known all along, likely for days, what </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> had been planning and chosen not mention it</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>Derek couldn’t fault him. He wasn’t an easy person to know, let alone serve. He hadn’t wanted a servant at all. Any time he thought of complaining about the assignment he remembered unearthing the barrel in Mr. </span>
  <span>Lahey’s</span>
  <span> cellar, one among hundreds that should</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t have stood out in a vintner’s stores. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Catherine’s eyes went around the table, marking the chairs that were empty and she asked, “When does Peter return?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Soon, I think,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> answered as the first course was brought out. Even without having spoken to anyone in his family for days, Derek knew </span>
  <span>it</span>
  <span> was a lie. His mother could regulate her heart rate and lie easily enough to a wolf, but not to one that knew her well. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His aunt made a disapproving humming sound and then, “The moon will be reaching perigee soon, and it will be full. He shouldn’t have gone far from the territory.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek forced himself not to whip around for confirmation. Had he really lost track of so much time? Surely Isaac would have reminded him sooner or later if he’d not suddenly decided to leave the confines of his room. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever would we do if Uncle Peter were </span>
  <span>suddenly</span>
  <span> taken from this world?” Laura wondered aloud. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Before </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> could pounce on her, Gaby asked sweetly, “Still yearning for a kiss on the head?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Really mother,” added Cora, “We would all be immensely better off if you had not breast-fed Sister Laura until her adult teeth grew in.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr. Boyd please escort the girls to their rooms,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> ordered and ordinarily she would have shouted such a command, the vein in her forehead close to bursting. This was delivered so frigidly Derek pressed back into his chair with his jaw so tight it could have been wired shut. Cora hopped out of her chair before </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> had finished speaking, but Laura was far less inclined to move.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Boyd came to help her up and she snarled at him. She stood so quickly that the chair butted loudly across the hardwood as she stormed out of the room. Gabriella too slipped away to her guest </span>
  <span>quarters</span>
  <span>, </span>
  <span>hiding her laughter</span>
  <span>. She did</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t feel the totality of the hierarchy in their pack if only because she refused to leave her mother to her devices in the outlands and Catherine, in turn, refused to the leave the uncomplicated peace the isolation of the woods offered. As a child Derek wouldn’t have dared find any levity in his mother’s temper; he certainly found none in it now as a grown man. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When all was settled the silence, too, filled back in. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> rubbed the bridge of her nose up to her forehead. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Her sister said, examining both Derek and his mother evenly, “</span>
  <span>Is this boy Peter’s run off with really that valuable</span>
  <span>?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> hand moved to her mouth as she looked into Catherine’s dark eyes, but she said nothing. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Derek answered for her. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve taken in strays before, Tally,” Catherine said, her frown growing more severe than the constant dow</span>
  <span>n</span>
  <span>turn her mouth was normally set to, “And they’ve come and gone without so much as a glance. </span>
  <span>Now this place is practically a funeral home.” </span>
  
  
</p><p>
  
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> admitted, “I </span>
  <span>mislead </span>
  <span>him.” He had never heard his mother say so out loud and it struck him hard. She held Derek’s gaze for a moment before saying, “It’s my fault you’ve been separated, puppy. I shouldn’t have used you.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek jolted upright from the table, his movement sending a clatter through the dishes. He had thought he</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>d crushed his anger. Isolating himself for so long should have freed him of its restraints; what a fool – what a fucking fool – he was. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>I listened to you</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>W</span>
  <span>hat was just as true was that he’d not questioned her and so really, </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> Hale was not the only one to blame. </span>
  <span>She hadn’t forced him into anything</span>
  <span>. A different alpha in her place would hav</span>
  <span>e</span>
  <span>; if she had it would</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>ve been so much easier to pin all of his regrets, his </span>
  <span>undrained</span>
  <span> anger to her. </span>
  <span>Maybe that was why she never exerted authority that way. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Catherine’s eyes narrowed, “You have feelings for this boy, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Derek</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” </span>
  <span>Her</span>
  <span> tone used to send a shiver down his spine when he was young. He stood </span>
  <span>fast;</span>
  <span> his hands pulled into fists. “I see,” she persisted, “And rather than tell this young man how you felt, rather than protect him against what you thought might harm him, what did you </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>If you had any feelings for me at all, you could’ve been honest with me.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> tried, “</span>
  <span>Catey</span>
  <span>, he-,” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No. You</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>ve both made a mess of </span>
  <span>this. </span>
  <span>I want </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span> to say it. Derek, you’ve always been a good boy, but you are a pigheaded, stubborn ass when you’re frightened and make no mistake, this young man has frightened you. I do</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t need to have met him to know, it’s obvious </span>
  <span>by the dumb look on your face</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> should</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t have tried to manipulate him, even if her intentions are good and you should have stood up for yourself for </span>
  <em>
    <span>once</span>
  </em>
  <span>. If you love </span>
  <span>him</span>
  <span>, you shouldn’t have allowed this to go so far. Now tell me, when your mother asked you to keep watch on him, what did you do?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He was like </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>, both in the room and not, his mind hardening, trying desperately to wall itself off from them. Who was she to demand answers from him? </span>
  <span>It wasn’t </span>
  <span>really answers she was after; she wanted him to humiliate himself for the sake of her own rigid moral superiority. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Did I hit a nerve?</span>
  <span>” Catherine </span>
  <span>asked</span>
  <span> when his eyes glowed blue.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Catherine, you’re being crue</span>
  <span>l–</span>
  <span>,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> tried.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not, you’ve been too gentle. Both of you are damned martyrs when no one’s asked you to be. For God’s sake, boy, I am </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> attacking you. No wonder you’re so violently introverted when no one in this </span>
  <span>G</span>
  <span>od</span>
  <span>-</span>
  <span>damn family will just speak plainly. You’ve done a bad thing Derek. Accept it. It is done. But perhaps you’re most egregious mistake was letting this boy leave without mending what you've broken. Do you think I spent my days wallowing when Gaby’s father abandoned us? I had known it was possible she could be born a </span>
  <span>W</span>
  <span>olf and I prayed every night that she would be human, that I would</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t have to lose him because of my omissions. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>m </span>
  <span>still </span>
  <span>ashamed of my behavior, but it was mine and all I</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>m left with is to own my decisions. I pursued that man to the end of the earth. I threw myself at his feet and he still would</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t have us. He </span>
  <span>might’ve</span>
  <span> always reacted that way, even if I</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>d been honest from the beginning, but tha</span>
  <span>t’</span>
  <span>s the situation I created for myself. And after I had his answer I moved on with my life. The bed you’ve made for yourself is not so different from </span>
  <span>mine</span>
  <span>, now lie in it.”</span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Instinct Blues</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Gaby sat in </span>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> parlor drinking tea with a stiff pinky finger if only because it seemed to greatly amuse Mr. </span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span> and greatly annoy Miss Laura. Her aunt took </span>
  <span>such quick </span>
  <span>pity on her children. None of them were allowed to sit for dinner – because they could scarcely sit in civility for more than a couple of minutes no matter the setting – but they were invited down when the plates were cleared for coffee and cake. Not much of a lesson learned. They were all so preoccupied with being wolves and none of them interested in being human, except for </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>. It was by her example any of them bothered to dress </span>
  <span>like</span>
  <span> they did or eat from china and silver and crystal. She was the reason they lived in a house at all.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>This was why Gabriella chose not to live </span>
  <span>with</span>
  <span> her cousins. Her mother urged her to go and learn, but </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> was</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t interested in teaching her </span>
  <span>what she wanted to know</span>
  <span>. She taught her children how to exist alongside mortals; how to pretend and speak. Pointless. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Your ensemble is so – functional, cousin,” observed Laura. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Can’t very well dig up hares with a steel cage tied to my waist</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>It’s r</span>
  <span>abbit blood,</span>
  <span> isn’t it? </span>
  <span>I couldn’t </span>
  <span>guess at first</span>
  <span>.”  </span>
  <span>Cora</span>
  <span> reached out for Gaby’s wrist and she gave it so Cora could </span>
  <span>sniff</span>
  <span> the dark stain on her sleeve. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Gaby gave a pointed look to </span><span>Thalia</span><span>, but </span><span>Thalia</span><span> was as distracted </span><span>as she’d been at dinner</span><span>. Catherine settled on a settee beside her, sipping hot coffee and fanning herself with an elaborate peacock feather folding fan. Beyond them snow was falling in large cottony wads outside the bay window. Together the sisters formed one person while </span><span>Thalia</span><span> was too distraught to be whole. That, perhaps, was why Mother had </span><span>accepted</span> <span>her</span><span> invitation. The moon pushed them together when She came so close to the world, but, truly, the longer Gaby watched them, the more obvious it was that the moon was only an excuse that allowed them</span><span> to be </span><span>together without bruising their fragile prides. </span></p><p>
  <span>“Warrens are easy to find in the snow,” Gaby said,</span>
  <span> “</span>
  <span>I’ll show you in the morning.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Good</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“With you here, Gabriella, I’m sure we won’t need to order grocery for a month,” Laura sighed. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Should I be insulted</span>
  <span> when</span>
  <span> you hardly know the ass-end of a pheasant from its front?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Laura looked as though she were going to retort in some insufferable way when, collectively, they heard the unmistakable slam of the eastern stable doors being thrown open too wide by the wind. The clatter was so loud that Gaby suspected even a human might have heard it from indoors. The stables hands were rushing a knee-deep snow to shut them again, their voices a dull, indistinct rumble under the whipping weather. And then, hooves thundering past the house toward the gate on the hill. They listened until the shod drumbeat faded away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gaby couldn't understand horses, herself, and they hated her. Useless, fat creatures. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> grasped Catherine’s </span>
  <span>wrist;</span>
  <span> her cheeks having gone deathly pale. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr. </span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span>,” Mother said, unaffected, “A bottle, something strong</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac bowed and went from the room to assemble their drinks.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She and Derek used to make a game of slinking through the house at night. He taught her how to use other sounds like settling creaks or jumping shutters to mask her movements from their parents. Gaby had once broken a finger trying to out-maneuver their uncle on a night none of them could sleep. She tip-toed here and there, skirted the less tread upon floor near the molding, walked on furniture that could still bear her weight. It had been far easier to prance about in the darkness as a child. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She stood in Derek’s doorway. The bed was still made and empty. No sounds or smells were out of place though they had faded in his absence. It was too bad that he'd left her here to play alone. The hairs on the nape of her neck prickled. Somewhere in the room beyond her, Wolf stopped its rooting through Derek’s things. In her periphery she saw the nocturnal glow of its alert eyes. She heard dully the light snores of her family, scattered in their rooms. Laura was the only one choosing to sleep alone; the others were piled in </span>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> grand suite, kicking when dreams spun up and snuffling into their sheets. But not everyone was asleep. There was a hint of tart-sweetness in the air, like black cherries on their branch, and layered with it: brass polish and laundry soap.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Gaby crouched and eased her heart rate to a muffled thudding one would have to be standing next to her to hear. This she had not learned this from Derek, but from Wolf, Herself. Her mother had so few visitors that the wood surrounding her cottage was bold still, sporting a wily temper like it’s cousin beyond that infernal Wall. If a person was patient, there was quite a bit it had to teach. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He stopped moving toward her, for to him she had vanished from his senses like a ghost gone through the walls. So close to Derek’s room, to his bed saturated with his earthy scent she blended into the hall as if she were a piece of decoration. He kept moving, more slowly now, a tinge of nerves clinging to his skin. When he’d padded close enough to her, Gaby sprang on him and wrestled him to the floor.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac yelped before wind gushed from his lungs. The tray he had been carrying rolled away and bounced loudly off the nearest end table. She straddled him before he could pose much of a resistance and pinned his arms. Grinning she whispered, “You’re a good wolf Isaac </span>
  <span>Lahey</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You shouldn’t make a habit of ambushing cripples.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He was testing her hold and finding it wouldn't budge. He sighed, melancholic as ever, and stopped trying to free himself when it became apparent prying himself free would require more energy than he was willing to spend. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She had meant to ask him where her cousin had run off to in a blizzard under cover of night but reconsidered now that she had him restrained. Everyone who lived and worked on the grounds must have come to him looking for Derek Hale at one time or another, certainly now that he’d become more of a recluse than he’d been previously (something she had not thought possible). Who would have sought him out just to speak with him otherwise? </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mother says I have a lot of bad habits,” Gaby said in agreement. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you out of bed? Miss </span>
  <span>Catherine’ll</span>
  <span> skin you if she catches you.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Restless,” she said with a shrug and let go of his wrists so that she could sit straight and stretch her shoulders. This house was a cavity, not so different from the burrows she’d unearthed at dawn, except this one was above the ground; endless twists and turns and cubbies to hide in. It made her flesh crawl to be trapped inside for so long. She’d known Derek had taken flight but had wanted to see for herself that his room was vacant and there was no one to prowl the halls with. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac propped himself up onto one arm and ran his fingers through his dense nest of curls. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“The moon?” he asked.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A bit, maybe. But no, it was not just the fattening moon plucking her strings. There was something larger, closer than the moon making her blood rush. She supposed that may have been why Derek'd run off; Wolf sometimes told him things that She never bothered to tell her, no matter how often they spoke. As Gaby and her mother passed through Fever Hill and the shops were readying to close down for the evening, there had been a briskness in the air that had nothing to do with the cold. It was a feeling like touching frozen metal, one that burned straight through. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I think something is coming,” she confided. It was against Mother’s wishes that she speak of Wolf or the gifts Wolf occasionally gave her. Those around her would be too tempted to exploit her connection, even her Aunt </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>, as it had turned out. She believed her mother thinly, as all children believed their parents even when they gave no evidence. Now – now she hated the knowing look she’d gotten when Catherine received word of the whole affair with the Fox boy from Last Rest. She hated that </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> hadn’t been strong enough to resist the Four’s power, even if the boy she’d found was scarcely cognoscente of his abilities. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac’s wide blue eyes narrowed, but not out of anger. He asked, “What do you mean?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve had a foreboding.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He snorted a disbelieving laugh and laid back down, one arm crooked under his head as a cushion. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Promise me you will run away,” she said sternly, clutching his shirt front so that he was forced to look at her. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“From what?” he asked flatly. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“The man with crooked teeth.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve described most of the town.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll know.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You enjoy confusing people with nebulous statements?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” she huffed, but how else could she be expected to describe the feelings she found in the Wood? It didn't speak in terms as limiting as words. It saw the spool of the world unthread, it was the force which caused it to unravel. There were too many pathways for the yarn to pull apart, infinite possibilities that couldn't be condensed down into a single absolute. In the weave of it she had seen too many outcomes to know which was truest, but there were many ending in horrors. There were also many ending with her saving pieces of those that might be swept away in the next pass of the loom’s shuttle. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She pulled her shirt up and over her head and cast it away. Isaac stared at her, his body having suddenly tensed. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What–,” he sputtered.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You are a good wolf Isaac Hale,” she said again and leaned down to kiss him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Red Rain</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Dr. Martin lingered by the butcher’s cart a while longer as the towering black gates of Last Rest were unsealed. A crowd had been drawn by the sound and gathered around the widening crack all dressed in their dark winter cloaks; a cloud of hushed murmuring settling over them. It was early still, too early for the gates to open. Snow had yet to pile more than a foot over the new graves dug and filled in the old church cemetery. She waited for whom ever was on the other side, if anything expecting an ox driven cart loaded down with limestone slabs ready for engraving, or perhaps charity of some kind from the other mountains towns to aid them through the remaining cold months. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A black carriage, unmarked and undecorated, glided into the square. One or two </span>
  <span>old women</span>
  <span> scowled and spit on the passing wheels. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Monkshood,” whispered Hayden, at her side, her hand falling on Dr. Martin’s arm and giving it a light squeeze. She closed her eyes and pulled in a long breath, “And metal and gun powder.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The base of Martin’s skull smarted for a moment, the familiar pang spreading like ink in water and reaching all the way to her temples. And then, strangely, there was nothing; no pain at all. The whispers in the </span>
  <span>Murk</span>
  <span> faded from her ears entirely. So jarring was the absence of the constant drone of Death’s muttering Lydia felt it like a blow. She blinked hard, her fingers grazing her forehead and Hayden was speaking quickly and quietly, but she ignored her. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Shut up</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she bit off when she was able, her agitated gaze returning to the coach waiting still, its white horses breathing hard after so long stomping through the drifts.  Only a madman would drive horses through this weather. The roads and trails weaving through the foothills had not been cleared. The beasts would be dead by morning even if they were bought to a warm barn in the next couple of minutes. And as Dr. Martin thought it, there was a commotion in the square; voices and braying blended together into a pitchy chorus of screams as one of the pale horses collapsed, dragging down its rigging and the </span>
  <span>stallion</span>
  <span> tethered in beside it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The driver was out of his seat and a footman that looked all but frozen to his post at the rear of the coach </span>
  <span>also</span>
  <span> leapt down to try and right the horses. But they were ineffectual, too cold to bend or stand and they looked around deliriously at the villagers for help to find none.  The footman tried still to undo the straps with brittle fingers; the driver, however, sunk to the cobbles, sitting with both legs out in front of him with his head hung. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Go home,” Dr. Martin whispered to Hayden.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>There was enough of a crowd watching this bizarre scene unfold that Hayden could slip away unnoticed and she did. A man off to Martin’s right began to bawl. He could</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t have known, but his tears were pointless. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The door of the coach swung open and a woman stepped out dressed in furs and leather armor, weapons strewn about her person and her wheaten hair tied neatly down her back. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Lydia’s hand fell to her chest where her heart was clanging. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When the woman spoke, her voice was not her own. It was death’s voice, the reason all other nettling whispers had fallen away. </span>
  
</p><p><span>“I am looking for David </span><span>Whittemore</span><span>,” the woman shouted. Some flinched. The rest watched her with ghosts’ eyes. The woman’s lethal gaze went through the crowd, her impatient scowl deepening. “I was summoned</span> <span>by your Reverend David </span><span>Whittemore</span><span>. He informs me that you have a crazed fox on your hands. I am here to skin it.” </span></p><p>
  <span>From somewhere in the throng came, “</span>
  <span>It</span>
  <span> can’t be killed.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Th</span>
  <span>e woman smirked, her voice softening, “We shall see.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Jackson </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span> pushed his way to the front, making a show as if he’d only just arrived, but Dr. Martin knew better. Like many of them, she supposed, he had wanted to see what the intruder would do. He was a fool to go to her now, thinking certainly that she posed no threat to him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“My father’s taken ill,” he said strongly. He was clean shaven and well dressed, but Last Rest was so far into the winter and rations were spread so thin not even his bulky clothing could hide how gaunt he had become. Among them, only Mayor Hubbard maintained a healthy complexion and only because he’d been fat as a round, summer squash his entire life. “He’d never summon anyone during the Offering.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The woman took a folded piece of paper from her cloak and held it high, addressing not Jackson, but the entirety of the gathering. “This letter came to me not more than a month ago; written in your reverend’s hand and sealed with his seal. I know you have been visited by the Harvestmen. I know that many died during their incursion. These beasts beyond the Wall and their half-breed mongrels living among you are not dark spirits – they are flesh and blood and I have come to purge your town of its infestation.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You think no one’s tried?” piped up Landsey Smith, “Who do you think you are, Van fucking </span>
  <span>Hellsing</span>
  <span>?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The woman turned her horrible smile on him, “Sweetheart,” she purred, “this whole continent once belonged to the </span>
  <span>Murk</span>
  <span>. It stretched all the way to the sea. We pushed it beyond the mountains, built and rebuilt our Walls. That,” she said a little louder thrusting a finger at the top of the Wall where it rose above the furthest buildings, “is not the first Wall to ever stand. And the time has come to push it back again, claim the entire valley beyond. My people have been living among you. This town and every Wall </span>
  <span>town</span>
  <span> is overrun with spies for the Forest. They move against you even now.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A couple of men erupted from the crowd and threw Hayden down into the square before the woman. Lydia’s feet planted to the snow packed ground, her features threatening. She let the dread drop through her, let her eyes close for just a moment, just long enough to feel the full extent of her horror. She remembered </span>
  <span>her</span>
  <span> humid, smoky cabin on the edge of town, the fire filling the room to its brim with heat against the chill outside. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>If it doesn’t end in Last Rest, it doesn’t end at all. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Some of us have lived among you longer than you know,” said the woman, circling Hayden, eyes raptorial and fixed, “generations even; watching. The </span>
  <span>Murk’s</span>
  <span> tactics always change. Every time we are nearly overcome, we retreat, a Wall is built and we wait. Ours is a war of inches. The only way to win is to be more patient than the </span>
  <span>Murk</span>
  <span> itself.” She squatted in front of Hayden, brushed a few stray curls behind her ear; Hayden stared at the ground trembling and not daring to move. “</span>
  <span>O</span>
  <span>ur first strike never changes,” said the woman, barely audible, “we can’t have you watching the watchers.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Lydia tried with all her might to suppress the scream mounting in her chest. It cut the air, shrill and earsplitting, deafening as musket-fire to those closest to her. They dove to cover their ears leaving her standing, braced against the butcher’s cart, a scarecrow in a field of leaning corn.  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>And the woman thrust a short knife into Hayden’s throat. Blood spilled in the sheets </span>
  <span>on to</span>
  <span> the slush and still the woman sawed until Hayden was nearly headless and twitching, far beyond the reach of Wolf’s quick healing.  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>But the villagers were not crying and shrinking from this murderer, from the ghastly corpse of a young girl that had been one of them, living, just a moment ago. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Their stark, terrified eyes were on Dr. Martin. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A dam broke in Lydia, tears surging down her cheeks, she took a ragged step forward and cried, “Do not look at me!” she heaved a sob and then, “Is a crime not a crime just because it's done in daylight?! In front of your eyes?! Don't look at me!” She jabbed her finger at death’s new messenger where she was still crouched, blade dripping into the snow, “She has killed your own daughter! And you look at <em>me</em>?! You</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>re beasts! Fearful beasts! Do</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t give her this power! Resist!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Those circled around her split, eyes darting mistrustfully from neighbor to neighbor. If any heeded her warning there were not as many as she could have hoped. None moved to stop the woman, not even the constable. This was the chaos they blamed on Fox and on the </span>
  <span>Murk</span>
  <span>. A fight broke out to her left. Screams and wails pitched up into the frostbitten air. </span>
  <span>T</span>
  <span>hey could</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t see what was so horribly apparent to Lydia: that the Spirits in the </span>
  <span>Murk</span>
  <span> were silent, that this chaos was all their own making; theirs and the silently lurking oligarchs that had produced this woman who killed children indiscriminately. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>By the look in her eyes, she was</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t even totally aware of what she’d done. She looked far into Lydia and through her to the other side because Lydia Martin was not alive to her, she was a trophy waiting to be mounted. </span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. A Martyr For My Love For You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Christian looked on disdainfully as Stiles ordered and proceeded then to shovel forkfuls of a second slice of chocolate cake into his mouth. In his other hand was a large dust coated tome he’d dug out of the back of some derelict consignment shop and it was too much for Christian’s fine sensibilities. If he was a snob, this was a prime example as to why. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You are aware of the existence of other people?” he asked idly, lip curling in disgust. He flicked ash from his cigarette into a crystal tray.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Do you think when</span>
  <span> the moon is furthest from the </span>
  <span>earth it makes </span>
  <span>Wolf </span>
  <span>shifters</span>
  <span> weaker? This author spends all his time talking about when to hide your children and the evils of ever staring directly at the moon longer than five heartbeats.”   </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“This is an expensive restaurant,” Christian sighed, “you can tell because all of the food is so tiny.” He picked delicately at the precise arrangement of his mushrooms on toast, drizzled in celery sauce. There was something deeply erotic about well-executed plating. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You asked me to come here,” Stiles, irritatingly, pointed out. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I have </span>
  <span>no one</span>
  <span> else to eat a polite meal with.” He’d have put more drama in his words if he had had the energy. He settled instead for a gulp of wine. A dramatic gulp. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s a joke here somewhere,” came the slurry voice of the man Christian had come here to meet. This man was rarely on time and quite a lot of person to absorb all on one’s own, though Stiles had already proven little interest in leaving their hotel room at all, let alone making polite conversation with a boisterous stranger. "Two psychics walk into a bar – or,” the man massaged his round chin, “damn, one psychic cries wolf while the other </span>
  <span>fu</span>
  <span>-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Bobby, this is Stiles, my slave,” Christian cut </span>
  <span>in.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles raised a brow at </span>
  <span>him</span>
  <span>, finally tearing his gaze from the pages and then took in Robert </span>
  <span>Finstock’s</span>
  <span> erratic hair and dress. The flinch that followed was not well hidden.                            </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Who taught you reading, slave?” Bobby asked.<br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles answered him with a tired glare. He’d not been sleeping well if the shuffled steps pacing the common room of their suite at all hours of the night were any indication. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Find anything?” asked Christian. He hadn’t much hope in their endeavor and it was clear in his voice. Whatever </span>
  <span>Finstock</span>
  <span> had been able to </span>
  <span>suss</span>
  <span> out for them it would be the final rock to turn over in Good River seeing as every other inquiry they'd made had gotten them no farther. He was an excellent person to know in the city, there was not much that escaped Bobby’s manic gaze, and if he knew nothing about this – Peter refered to them as silver pig-fuckers – cult it would be time to move on and try once again to predict the next move across the board. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Christian should have had an advantage over their quarry, especially because of Stiles. With Stiles chanting beside him over his </span>
  <span>scrying</span>
  <span> bowl, Stiles who was a maple tap to the Wood’s power, who could channel energy as surely as a steel rod in a storm, they should have been able to divine even a single grain of sand lost on a shore of billions. For a fortnight they attempted it again and again, and their efforts had ended in Christian hurling a candlestick at the mantle. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Christian did not </span>
  <em>
    <span>fail </span>
  </em>
  <span>when casting. He never failed. Peter snickered each time the </span>
  <span>cantrip</span>
  <span> fizzled but Peter never relied on anything other than his will to accomplish what he wished; he could solve any problem with calculated brute force. Accept for this one. His evenings spent stalking in the city, hunting for scent trails were just as useless. They settled for more basic means of searching while Christian dealt with his flaccid </span>
  <span>magics</span>
  <span> and there was nothing for Peter to tear apart with his fangs. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Now that’s an interesting question,” Bobby said grandly, sweeping both arms behind his head as he thought on the matter. It was never easy to tell how much of </span>
  <span>Finstock</span>
  <span> was deliberate theatricality and how much was genuine. He could very well have been a genius cursed with funny hair and wild eyes. “I’ve heard there’s a girl child, not much older than your learned slave, but there’s not a tutor nor governess in the colligate circles to have taught her. She didn't debut when she came of age, at least, not publicly. I couldn’t even find her first name. The only reason I was able to find out about her existence is that she was apparently delivered in a dairy farmer’s house two provinces away quite accidentally when her mother went into labor while traveling.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“He has a child we can find no information about, that was born sometime, some place in the country,” Christian said dryly, “Stiles, he’s saved us.” </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> mouth tightened into the approximation of a wry smile. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Grandchild, you smug turd,” </span>
  <span>Finstock</span>
  <span> snapped. He shoved a fist-sized helping of bread from their table into his cheek. “The girl is his grandchild. He has two children, both adults, both nameless, faceless, wraiths prowling the night. That’s all I could find of what you asked, however, there is a certain buxom trifle that works a kiln in the foundry off Colt’s Neck Road. She indulges me in an occasional congress of sorts....” he trailed off, his eyes going vacant for a few uncomfortable seconds before he blinked and continued, “she has a friend that was commissioned to produce odd ceramic parts, well, they think the parts were meant for a machine of some kind but she was only given specifications and nothing more. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Ordinarily I should think your man and his peers bare no identifying marks, but this friend of my friend was paid in solid silver coins emblazoned with a </span>
  <em>
    <span>fleur de </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>lis</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Nearly climbing across the table in his excitement Stiles demanded, “Where were the parts delivered?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They were picked up at the foundry,” </span>
  <span>Finstock</span>
  <span> said with a shrug, “The courier was said to have arrived on the specified day driving a team of four oxen.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Where did he go?</span>
  </em>
  <span>" </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“To a warehouse in Redd’s Peak.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles was already moving, scrabbling to gather his things and then storming toward the polished brass transom. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I wonder how far he’ll get before realizing he doesn’t know where to go,” speculated Christian. </span>
  <span>Finstock</span>
  <span> handed him a paper scrap scribbled with in his frantic handwriting. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s the veal here like</span>
  <span>?</span>
  <span>” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sometimes I think that being swept away by a </span>
  <span>rakish</span>
  <span> werewolf was not the best decision of my life.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Nodding solemnly, Bobby said, “I feel the same way about the piercing </span>
  <span>in</span>
  <span> my penis.” Christian patted the back of his hand. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p><span>The warehous</span><span>e</span> <span>had long been</span> <span>vacated </span><span>and</span> <span>since rented out to a distribution company that had filled nearly all available floor space with stock. Christian did</span><span>n’t </span><span>ask what was inside the crates, though a few of them looked to be leaking something yellowish. He scraped the bottom of his brogues on the nearest surface – which turned out to be yet another container also excreting ooze </span><span>– </span><span>while holding </span><span>Stiles’s</span><span> shoulder for balance.   </span></p><p>
  <span>“I received another letter from your father, you know,” </span>
  <span>he</span>
  <span> said. His shoes looked to be mostly unharmed</span>
  <span>. H</span>
  <span>e’d have to pay a ransom to have them cleaned. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They paid off the landlord, how else could she remember nothing about them? She wouldn’t even give me </span>
  <span>an</span>
  <span> alias.”  He was still staring off the way she had gone, as if her shadow might scurry back without her. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I know you can hear me.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They were probably gone before we got to town," he hissed, fingers going through </span>
  <span>his</span>
  <span> hair, “The visions aren’t giving </span>
  <span>me</span>
  <span> enough.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>With a sigh Christian righted himself, “Fine, but we will talk about this later. While your father is certainly my type it cannot possibly be my responsibility to keep tabs on both you and he.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles hummed the approximation of a response and went off down one of the aisles to poke around for only God knew what else. Life had been easier on his parent’s pig farm, boring and shit-stinking but at least the pigs handled their problems through the usual means of eating too much, trying to kill each other or wallowing in mud. Christian really hadn’t the interest to peel the layers off of Stilinski’s particular onion of angst. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>As they made ready to leave, Stiles still looking dour, they were approached by a seedy looking laborer a block down from the warehouse. Or rather, he was a seedy werewolf if Christian’s senses were not too muddled by the </span>
  <span>bottle of </span>
  <span>wine he’d polished off at lunch. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re digging machines,” the </span>
  <span>shifter</span>
  <span> said</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Excuse me?” Christian sighed. </span>
  
</p><p><span>“You wanted to know what’s being shipped </span><span>outta</span><span> Milton’s?</span> <span>It’s parts of digging machines, plows, drill bits, engines; never seen anything like it</span><span>.”</span></p><p>
  <span>“Who are you?” Stiles demanded.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I worked for a lumber yard on the coast and I know what I saw. Those people – they decimated </span>
  <span>Gibbard’s</span>
  <span> Paw, they killed my brother and that shit they’ve been commissioning around the city, it’s enough machinery to flatten a whole province.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“And you’re telling us this because?” Christian </span>
  <span>asked</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
</p><p><span>“We’ve been watching them</span><span>, </span><span>lookin</span><span>g for information,</span><span> but our spies keep disappearing. </span><span>It’s not </span><span>about territory anymore.” He</span> <span>slipped away from them, disappearing into the hordes of people packing the district. Things were getting a smidge too interesting for Christian’s taste. Werewolves stopping strange witches on the street? </span><span>T</span><span>o share? What</span> <span>was the world coming to? </span></p><p>
  <span>Christian struck a match off his shoe – why not? - and lit a cigarette because this was the best he could do in situations such as these. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles swallowed, “Do you have the letter from my father?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Not on me</span>
  <span>.</span>
  <span>”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles was sprinting down the road at full tilt before Christian could push out another word.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Stiles burst into their suite and started tearing apart Christian’s things on the writing desk. When he finally came upon the envelope he ripped it apart, but he was too overwhelmed, too terrified and exhausted to read it. He skimmed the lines, the skin of his brain strangled tightly around itself. His father’s words were vague, incomprehensible, he asked about things that had never happened, spoke about people Stiles had never met. It was too late. He had been chasing ghosts for weeks, going from city to city and it was too late. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles sagged against the desk. He’d done this, he’d allowed it to happen. The Wood had given them everything it could; he’d sat through </span>
  <span>seances</span>
  <span>, scoured libraries for more information, more, more, more. That man – that </span>
  <em>
    <span>beast – </span>
  </em>
  <span>had emerged from hiding while Stiles hunted him in every conceivable place. If he’d been hiding at all; what a fool </span>
  <span>he</span>
  <span> was. These silver-blooded monsters were not so different from people like the Hales. They had been there all along; a black mass held in plain sight. </span>
  
</p><p><span>“I’ve gotten a disturbing letter from my sister,” said Peter Hale, leaned on the door frame across the room, “It's nonsense. She says mother and father are doing well.” Stiles couldn’t even turn to face him. He sunk lower</span> <span>into the desk chair. “Our parents have been dead thirty years. Though I will say, of all the monsters I've encountered in my lifetime, they were the most horrific.”</span></p><p>
  <span>“They’re in Last Rest</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>I</span>
  <span> packed our things</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>If they</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>re watching the post, they undoubtedly know where to find us.” </span>
  
</p><p><span>Peter</span><span> stared hard at the </span><span>floorboards;</span> <span>his </span><span>arms loosely woven together.</span> <span>“You have a visitor in the salon; make it quick.” </span></p><p>
  <span>He departed. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span> shouldered through the double doors and found Derek Hale standing by the </span>
  <span>hearth</span>
  <span> dressed in his customary dark colors. A frisson went down </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> spine. </span>
  <span>The door </span>
  <span>snicked</span>
  <span> closed behind him</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s eyes w</span>
  <span>ent to </span>
  <span>his arms, </span>
  <span>to</span>
  <span> the </span>
  <span>tattoos </span>
  <span>that</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>d just lost their scabs, marks like Christian’s meant to help him see all he possibly could. They were an ugly tangle of thorns and animals and knots that wove down to his knuckles. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>This was the cruelest punishment the Wood </span>
  <span>could </span>
  <span>administer. He’d failed to find anything even remotely capable of stopping </span>
  <span>his</span>
  <span> terrible vision of Derek’s death and now the old man was everywhere, laying down one card and then another</span>
  <span>, the violent invisible love child of time and fate</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Derek</span> <span>was</span><span> tragically thin</span><span>;</span><span> his clothes no longer hugged pleasingly to hi</span><span>m </span><span>but rather off</span> <span>him</span><span> like a </span><span>strawman</span><span>’s</span><span> rags</span><span>. His eyes were bruised from denying his body rest and his hair and beard were a long, unkempt mess. Chin trembling</span><span>,</span><span> Stiles snapped, “Don’t you understand what’s happening? How – how could you –,” </span><em><span>how could you</span></em><em><span> do this to yourself</span></em><em><span>? </span></em><span>But he couldn’t bring up the rest of it, not with Derek</span><span> looking at him</span><span>. He had been wild and </span><span>virile</span><span> when Stiles left and now, he was hound with a cruel master, starved and miserable. </span></p><p>
  <span>“Forgive me.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles stared at him, his eyes stinging, “Forgive you what? You </span>
  <span>don’t</span>
  <span> know me, you </span>
  <span>don’t</span>
  <span>, you </span>
  <span>don’t</span>
  <span> owe me anything.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <span>helped her manipulate you.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Peter </span>
  <span>manipulates me</span>
  <span> five times before breakfast.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“…</span>
  <span>I thought you hated me.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Well I don’t!” </span>
  <span>He</span>
  <span> wasn’t sure why he was shouting. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s throat bobbed</span>
  <span>.</span>
  <span> “I should have followed you the </span>
  <span>second </span>
  <span>you left. I - I shouldn't have let you leave.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Christian </span>
  <span>read </span>
  <span>his tarot in the evening and </span>
  <span>discussed</span>
  <span> his visions</span>
  <span>; his </span>
  <span>‘visions’ </span>
  <span>sounded like they were meant to</span>
  <span> entertain himself</span>
  <span> rather than predict the future</span>
  <span>. Stiles was represented in his spreads as The Fool. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>You shouldn’t’ve.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The Fool, who was often reversed, would appear in the tragic stories of their futures so trapped by his own desires and reckless because of them that the sky would come crumbling down around him before he could make a single decision. The Fool could only react as things got worse, react without thought; he survived, but he did not live. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek couldn’t have arrived here any sooner or later than he did. This was how it must always have happened. It took nearly all of winter for Stiles to realize that most basic of principles: that there was no story about himself that mattered more than his own. But it was late by the time he could shake off his anger and see it for what it was. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> and Derek had been able to hurt him only because he loved them so much. The sun was sinking on his time with them and </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>had been responsible for </span>
  <span>wasting it</span>
  <span>. He stayed away, locked himself up </span>
  <span>with </span>
  <span>old texts, let an inker needle his skin and make the moles his mother gave him disappear; he made the choice to leave and he committed to that choice so that once the threat of death no longer hung over them all he would have something to return to.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>So that he might find a place to rest at long last.                                               </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He offered his hand, “It’s not safe</span>
  <span>; w</span>
  <span>e have to go.” Derek stared liked the dead. He</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>d come here to be rejected. His daunted expression was as much as Stiles deserved, “We have to go.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek crossed the room. When he was close enough, Stiles could smell the city on him. </span>
  <span>F</span>
  <span>or a long while </span>
  <span>he </span>
  <span>stood in front of Stiles with his gaze low and searching under his lids. His knuckle grazed the raised skin of </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> forearm</span>
  <span>, </span>
  <span>the tattoo of a swooping horned owl with </span>
  <span>vervain</span>
  <span> blooms for eyes. In the first few weeks of their parting, when Stiles was convinced he would never let himself be so affected by his feelings again, he</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>d fought in the early hours of the morning to forget what standing so close to Derek Hale felt like. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Not even the Wood</span><span>,</span> <span>when it grew out of his dreams, invaded his senses the way Derek did </span><span>. </span><span>Stiles’s</span><span> hide may be cut up and his mind might still be undoing the knots, but the very core of his being had been preserved for Derek Hale and no one else. It would always be that way, even should they grow to despise each other in old age or be separated by family, by war, by death; the middle of his soul had never belonged entirely to himself. </span></p><p><span>Derek took his hand and he looked as though there was something he wished to say but words had never done him much service. His fingers ghosted over the curve of </span><span>Stiles’s</span><span> chin as if touching him with any more pressure than that</span> <span>would make Stiles disperse like smoke. </span></p><p>
  <span>Their fingers laced together, they set out into the hall, Derek close to his side and Fox bounding ahead of them.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Seven Nation Army</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Peter was dragging Stiles by the elbow into an alcove beneath the grand staircase of the hotel‘s lobby as soon as they reached the bottom of it. Derek was towed along with him and between the two wolves </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> stumbling feet weren’t enough reduce him to the marble floor, but the soles of his oxfords did squeal with his effort to remain upstanding. For the briefest of moments he was trued up tightly amidst the Hales, front and back. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Why nephew,” Peter mused in whisper, “You’ve lost me quite a bit of money showing up so early. If you’d waited a week I’d be resplendent with petty cash and perhaps a few casks of that terrible wine your butler says is so fashionable.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mother sends her regards.” He still walked and talked like a plague carrier. Nothing anyone said to him would be able to cross the vast no man’s land in Derek’s mind. Stiles </span>
  <span>tested </span>
  <span>his grip on Derek’s hand. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Traffic's stopped,” Peter whispered, leading them away from the gleaming entryway. They hurried through swinging doors and a bustling kitchen. Since checking in there had always been a constant stream of carriages and foot carts outside the brass revolving doors. It occasionally died away or swelled but it never came to a standstill.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Their discrete exit was not as discrete as it should have been. They were passing through halls, turning servers’ heads</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve arranged a coach to meet us on the other side of </span>
  <span>High</span>
  <span> Bridge on the </span>
  <span>south side</span>
  <span>,” muttered Peter quickly. When they were through the last door and hustling into an alley, it donned on Stiles why Peter bothered telling them where to find their escape. He wasn't coming with them.</span>
</p><p><span>Peter slammed into an unseen wall and stumbled back into Stiles. A dark line of powder cut off the alley‘s mouth and behind them was a solid brick wall. Peter was already jogging toward it – was he thinking he could tear it down? Was a wolf really that strong? After everything Stiles had seen there was very little a Hale couldn’t do with the right motivation, but Peter</span> <span>gradually came to a halt, his head cocked to the side. </span></p><p>
  <span>Black figures peered over the </span>
  <span>rooves </span>
  <span>of the surrounding buildings, some of them holding pointed pikes and crossbows. Cloth was tied around their face</span>
  <span>s</span>
  <span>.</span>
  <span> They could have been the maids that turned down their beds or the cooks that made their food; each of them able to come so close without detection, to run their hands over </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span>’s</span>
  <span> research</span>
  <span> or light Christian’s cigarette for him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A woman, hooded and wearing a </span>
  <span>swaying long coat</span>
  <span>, stood just beyond the ash line when they turned; the Hales moving together without words and keeping Stiles squarely between them. To </span>
  <span>Stiles‘s</span>
  <span> horror, and there</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span>d been so many he thought he was developing an immunity to them, the woman’s hand was a claw on the collar of Christian’s coat</span>
  <span>; he </span>
  <span>was on his knees beside her. Blood trickled down his chin dripping from too many swollen, open wounds to count. And no, there was no immunity against what he saw. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek threw himself on Peter. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles leapt away from them as their faces morphed before his eyes from the handsome, familiar ones he knew into the </span>
  <span>rageful</span>
  <span> faces of the wolf. The two of them wrestled to the ground and into the filth skirting either side of the alley. But Derek was so thin; his uncle hurled him off and Stiles was running the moment he was free.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“STILES!”</span>
  
</p><p><span>“DON’T!” Stiles cried his palm thrust out, but he couldn’t bear to watch. He hit the ground and slid across the ice on his side.</span> <span>Pain seized up his lungs. Under his clothes, under his skin, something in his shoulder had </span><em><span>slipped</span></em><span>. He gagged on a sob, too shocked to wail or to think. Claw marks left gouges in the sleeve of his coat, blood dribbling out of the scratches and Stiles stuttered breath. There was too much air. </span></p><p><span>Peter had been flung back by the mountain ash barrier but was at it again, roaring and pummeling it with boulder sized fists. Bursts of bright light flared each time he struck the invisible pane. </span><span>T</span><span>he woman watched indifferently, having not flinched</span> <span>even when he charged her. </span></p><p>
  <span>“That’s enough,” the woman barked at Derek. He was on one knee, angled toward Stiles, his ever-changing eyes burning blue and stuck on him. He obeyed her with his jaw gritted. None of them had shifted in front of Stiles before now, on </span>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> orders no doubt. His school teacher’s book showed shifters to be large-boned and cursed with oblong skulls fringed by tusks as rotten and curly as a boar’s. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s half-shift, and Peter’s, didn't turn them into unrecognizable slaves to the Wood. They were changed, but not into something else; they looked whole when before there had always presented themselves as a one-sided coin. Fear was still able to stamp itself just as easily over this ferocious mask as it did Derek’s more human one. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You must be Mr. Hale,” touted the woman leering at Peter. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Breathe in. And out.</span>
  </em>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>He prodded the odd angle of his arm and the ball of his shoulder and choked as the twisted muscles shrieked back at him. He could fix it, he’d felt worse, they’d done so much worse to him; everyone he had ever met before peering up at the Hales from that pew had beat, screamed at and humiliated him, they had pelted him with whatever was on hand, </span>
  <span>stressed him to the point of acid sores in his mouth</span>
  <span>. No one understood pain the way Stiles did and he could fix this. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I do not walk in the Wood. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I am Victoria Argent.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles bit down on the wool lapel on his coat. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>You</span>
  <span> murdered my first born. My son.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I walk on the path. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter knelt at the foot of the ash line, his hands pressed to the barrier, the skin of his palms reddening and peeling where they were planted.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>This is what it felt like</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles sucked in air through his nose hard and fast and slammed his shoulder back into its socket. His teeth sliced into the fabric between them. He lost seconds or minutes, his eyes open and bulging but blinded by a white-out of pain. Blood oozed in his mouth, he’d bitten through his cheek</span>
  <span>. He hadn’t screamed.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“If you kill me in front – of him,” </span>
  <span>rasped</span>
  <span> Christian, “none </span>
  <span>–</span>
  <span> of you live.” His hands were bound behind him</span>
  <span>, but </span>
  <span>the tendons of his </span>
  <span>wrists</span>
  <span> were fluttering. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles slapped his palms on the alley floor. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I walk on the path. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Lightning sparkled, webbing over his knuckles and across the </span>
  <span>ground</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I do not walk this path alone.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p><span>The electricity sizzled and snapped and then finally a bullwhip of it scorched the ground opening a fiery gash of sparks </span><span>yawning</span><span> at terrible pace</span><span>. </span><span>Stiles scrambled back form it. The portal </span><span>groaned</span><span> as it tore through the earth and the sound was world ending, a sound so large</span> <span>Stiles felt it in his </span><span>sinews.</span></p><p><span>God, they had opened a door to Hell and Lucife</span><span>r</span><span> was smiling up at them from his black pulpit and Stiles wanted to shield his eyes but he had done this, he had called</span><span> on</span> <span>Scratch</span><span> to escape with what he loved. </span></p><p>
  <span>Peter was right to think he would mutilate himself to survive, that he might even attack another person if it was his life or theirs. He would do what any wolf would have done. That wasn’t what made him a savage. Witnessing the Catherine’s wheel doorway, the maw of the Underworld itself, rending ever more and hearing the volley of shouts of those anonymous cowards on the </span>
  <span>rooves</span>
  <span>, uncloaked a primordial sensation Stiles had always known was there even when he hadn’t the language to define it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He would cut off his arm to survive – he locked eyes with Derek – but he would drag the Morning Star out of Hell to </span>
  <em>
    <span>live</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A spray of crossbow bolts rained down and scattered to ashes on the wind, pulverized by unseen magic revolving in a wobbly ellipsis around the sparkling portal in the ground. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It comes through as they scurry on the rooftops, reloading, readying pikes, shouting orders. The only person of their collective not hurrying to the next contingency is Victoria Argent. She watches the portal, her round, pale face having gone shades whiter. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The temperature careens. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p><em><span>Two pronged legs appear in the dark hole with feelers flicking the air</span></em> <em><span>and then mandibles and glossy black dots clustered and winking just above them. This is not the willowy creature putting pictures in </span></em><em><span>Stiles’s</span></em><em><span> brain; its spiny carapace is warped where it has cracked and re-cracked. Barbs on its legs drip with clear</span></em><em><span>, lethal liquid</span></em><em><span>. The monster scarcely finds room enough in the alley to drag itself into their reality, far from the endless woodland. </span></em></p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It is a Harvestman bred for war. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles had a heartbeat of time </span>
  <span>to fight </span>
  <span>to his feet </span>
  <span>and</span>
  <span> see that Victoria Argent had abandoned her people. The alley mouth was empty of her and Christian, and Peter, human Peter, was gone too. His clothing lay </span>
  <span>in </span>
  <span>shredded heaps. A wolf larger than those scrawny beasts </span>
  <span>living </span>
  <span>on the edges of Last Rest, larger by more than half, was desperately digging and snarling, foam frothing from its maw as it hunted for a way out of their mountain ash cell. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Derek and Stiles reached each other in the same moment, their fingers interlocking as the War-man turned its beady </span><span>visage</span> <span>to</span><span> th</span><span>e </span><span>roof and the small militia </span><span>remaining </span><span>there. If they </span><span>held their position </span><span>longer than their own leader, they were fools. No one should die as they were about to.</span><span> They were beyond reasoning with the Wood.</span><span> Both sides were centuries too late to </span><span>repair the damage, perhaps even to know who had transgressed first</span><span>.</span><span> Other peoples’ wars; that was </span><span>Stiles’s</span><span> life: dodging the hell of other peoples’ wars. </span></p><p>
  <span>Stiles and Derek tucked themselves as far back from the fallout as they could, reaching a safe nook just as the creature began climbing the building. Brick and mortar crumbled instantly under its weight. In a flurry of cries, the structure groaned before collapsing in on itself. The roof caved and the killers with it – a horror scene of screaming and then nothing but falling rock and broken struts.  The War-man toppled the building and more shrieking and braying picked up as it lumbered into the street. Peter was gone like a shot the moment the way was clear. The wolf bounded over rubble, nimbly leaping from any fragment of that </span>
  <span>would</span>
  <span> bare </span>
  <span>his </span>
  <span>weight to the next.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stay here,” Derek ordered, but Stiles held his waist and blocked his way. They couldn’t part, not now, not after the fighting had started. The stone ground reverberated and Stiles tore his gaze away to find that the portal was still open and hissing, spitting sparks. He hadn’t ripped this hole between realms. He was merely a</span>
  <span> conductor of its energy</span>
  <span>. This was Christian’s doing and only he knew what his intentions had been. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He had done this rather than save himself. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Holding one another closely they witnessed as monster after monster heaved itself from the fiery jaws. More </span>
  <span>War-men</span>
  <span>, as huge and gnarled as the first. Hellcats</span>
  <span> and </span>
  <span>shulks</span>
  <span>. Quickens and </span>
  <span>knoxes</span>
  <span> and </span>
  <span>cavebears</span>
  <span>; </span>
  <span>every </span>
  <span>demonic spirit tha</span>
  <span>t’</span>
  <span>d hung from his </span>
  <span>schoolteacher’s</span>
  <span> chalkboard and many countless others that his nightmares had not been able to do justice. They emerged and marched </span>
  <span>in</span>
  <span> a black parade of everything humanity ha</span>
  <span>d built their Walls to hide from</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0024"><h2>24. White Moon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Gaby laid her head on Mother’s lap. She curled up with her back to the room, her muddy boots left somewhere behind her. Catherine stroked her hair as she continued to read a book of torturously dull poetry. Gabriella would rest for just a few hours; a few more hours where her greatest stresses were crouching over a porcelain commode before the sun had bothered to rise and listening to Laura’s wretched singing lessons that managed to fill the whole </span>
  <span>house</span>
  <span> with her cawing. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve caught a chill,” said Mother. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s cold, cold, cold.” Gaby pressed her nose into her mother’s skirt. The temperature may have been as miserable as it had been for months, but it wasn’t the reason for her pimpled skin. While in the kitchen, following the scent of a </span>
  <span>tray</span>
  <span> of wandering biscuits, her breath had turned foggy despite the iron stove’s heat. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>What had come to her in dreams and meditations was no longer a nebulous cloud of possibilities. Each time she felt a shiver snaking through her limbs, she knew the paths were dwindling. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell me a truth,” Mother said. It was a game they played for many years. At first, perhaps, it was meant to help sharpen her communications. Knowing all that she did was frightfully useless if she could not marry</span>
  <span> the visions to explanation</span>
  <span>. None of them, her mother </span>
  <span>n</span>
  <span>or her aunt, understood what a labor </span>
  <span>it </span>
  <span>truly was. The Wood’s language was not words. </span>
  <span>Words defined the mortal experience and had very little to do with the wilderness’s conscience.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“The Moon,” answered Gaby. It was one of two constants </span>
  <span>written in </span>
  <span>the </span>
  <span>L</span>
  <span>oom’s weave. She sat upright. An hour more of this contented life was all she wanted.</span>
  <span> “I think we’ve g</span>
  <span>otten </span>
  <span>a lot wrong.”</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span> Catherine laid down her book to give her daughter her full attention and it made Gaby’s eyes prickle. This was a truth that began as unassumingly as an oak tree did; one acorn became many and those became many more until a forest was shooting from the soil. She had known it longer than she would ever admit because she should not have had to know it at all, not when she was </span>
  <span>seven-years-old </span>
  <span> and not now at nineteen. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“The Moon has seen things</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  <span>Her sudden emotion must have caught her </span>
  <span>m</span>
  <span>other very much by surprise, because Gaby was just as shocked to feel it swelling. </span>
  
</p><p><span>“</span><span>Seen what</span><span>?” Catherine asked softly and she had never </span><span>said</span> <span>a </span><span>gentl</span><span>e thing</span><span> in Gaby‘s life, but then, Gaby had never before let a tear escape her eye while her mother was watching. </span></p><p>
  <span>“Death.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Gabriella McNamara,” sighed her mother, “If you insist on spinning yourself up in these fantasies, do</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t involve me. The moon hangs in the sky with a view of all of the world, I’m certain if there is one in the heavens who has seen the most bloodshed it is she </span>
  <span>who</span>
  <span> observes only </span>
  <span>at night</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“There were others</span>
  <span>–</span>
  <span>,” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Go wash up for supper. And don’t think </span>
  <span>I don’t know about you </span>
  <span>sneaking treats from that gap-toothed boy in the </span>
  <span>kitchen</span>
  <span>.</span>
  <span> You’ll clean your plate</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She said nothing more as her mother took her cane and ambled to her feet. The door waved closed behind her and Gaby wept for those that no one remembered to weep for. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She found Cora soaking her sister’s stockings in vinegar and hauled her back to her rooms. She suffered a few scrapes in the hall when tugging the girl along without an explanation brought Wolf out in both of them. The wounds stitched themselves in minutes, though the vase their wrestling had knocked off a side table was not so fortunate. Before their alpha could lay eyes on it</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> they had the shards swept up and hidden.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We are bound by this secret,” Cora said fervently, not at all the careless child she ordinarily purported to be. Perhaps </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> did reprimand her children to a certain degree. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll tell you another.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You must listen closely,” Gaby told her, squeezing her hand, “swear you will not forget.” She had been too young and her mother too old to know. Damning her cousin with her burdens was unfair, but there must be another vessel for this knowledge; somehow, it must survive her should she join the masses being committed to the underworld. Cora Hale and the Moon were both beauties, both bright and true and they were both constant. There wasn’t a tapestry hanging in the halls of time that did not contain her clever face. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I swear.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>A Cycle </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>is not four years, but one. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The city of Good River erupted sporadically in violence. Some streets were quiet and empty while others were leveled, wiped out by the sweeping back hand of a vengeful forest god. They relied on Derek to navigate the battlegrounds and he did what he could to give the combat its widest breadth. Still dust from so much destruction clung to their clothes and the inside of </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> nose. Gunshots cracked distantly and sometimes less than a few yards away, but the growing fog bank of dust and smoke clotted up the narrow roads and shimmered in the sun making for scant visibility. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek crowded Stiles to a brownstone wall, shielding him as a contingent of city soldiers jogged by with muskets across their hands. His ebony coat must have turned them indistinct and Stiles was relieved beyond measure that it had. No human could know what they were by looking but the air was charged</span>
  <span> with </span>
  <span>fighting; deplorable things were happening now in the confusion while the authority was distracted. And it was not Victoria Argent or her murderous family committing the acts</span>
  <span>; o</span>
  <span>rdinary people were running amuck in the streets, and some of the soldiers as well; they looted and they raped and they murdered and </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> amplified psyche could hear the indistinct cries of a thousand desperate people trying to escape. He had not once regretted the days he had been required to sit under </span>
  <span>the inker’s </span>
  <span>needle; he still didn't, but the threads connecting him more strongly to the collective unconscious now made for a strangle hold on his mind. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek’s broad hands cupped either side of his face and </span>
  <span>Stiles</span>
  <span>’s</span>
  <span> eyes flew open and he couldn’t recall </span>
  <span>when he’d shut them</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll protect you,” Derek swore, his fingers digging into the shorn back </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> head. He must have thought Stiles was afraid! In response, he grimaced as his mind replayed the vision of the dead wolf at his feet. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They moved east along the river, farther from </span>
  <span>High</span>
  <span> Bridge and from the portal he and Christian had manifested, the epicenter of the bloodshed and chaos. Here the air was thinning and they could make a faster pace without the hindrance of streets blocked by toppled buildings or the barricades being erected </span>
  <span>hastily </span>
  <span>by the militia. Derek stopped them again by ducking into a shop with smashed windows. It was empty of people and ruined inside, all of the shelves thrown over and picked clean. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A creature vaguely shaped like a great cat but with </span>
  <span>a third pair of legs</span>
  <span> and a spiked hide rather than fur, emerged from a side street. Crusted blood painted its pale, eggshell muzzle and chest. Stiles looked as much through the blown-out window frame as he dared. This creature’s stature eclipsed his own, the top of his head coming in at just a hair below its shoulder. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s a </span>
  <span>shulk</span>
  <span>,” his whispered, noting that the only part of its anatomy the people in Last Rest had correctly recorded were the black stripes on either of its sides, a streak applied as if by paintbrush soaked. One had not been seen in any province in hundreds of years; they were thought to have died out or migrated far from the Wall. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The </span>
  <span>shulk’s</span>
  <span> hindquarters sank to the road. There was no one else near that Stiles could see, but still, given the nightmarish climate of the day, it looked odd to see the creature sitting and doing nothing besides. </span>
  <span>He shoulder ached in time with his pulse. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it intelligent?” he muttered to Derek. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek's flattened hand wobbled in answer. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it fast?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No, it’s not fast?” Stiles asked incredulously. He squinted at the beast’s musculature again, at its long, flexible spine.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You're not going to ride it-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I know </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m</span>
  </em>
  <span> not going to.” Derek’s familiar stare peered through the deathly shell of his exterior, a stare he seemed to reserve only for Stiles. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He grasped </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> shoulders and leaned in too closely – a lifetime ago Stiles would’ve shrunk away, hated the scrutiny; he hungered for it now after so long with only the memory of it to lighten his chest, make his breathing quick. “No.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>During Christian’s readings, Derek Hale was represented by the Hermit, reversed.  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ll be trapped in the city for hours-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Everything that came through the Warren is bred to kill humans. That includes you and me. We’re half breeds, Stiles, as good as mortals to that thing-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I know you can’t fully shift, Derek,” Stiles growled back. He knew a great many things now that he should not have. Some he had worked out on his own and others he had methodically gleaned from hundreds of books and spent candle stubs. “If you could, you would've</span>
  <span> already</span>
  <span> and I could have ridden on your back; we would've made it to the bridge hours ago.” There were far more rules governing a shifter’s transformation than Derek may have been aware of himself and he had been born to the life of a skin shedder. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Changes nothing.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>There was a time when Stiles had wondered in retrospect if the wild black dog he used to see on the way to his father’s house was Derek in his animal form keeping a watchful eye from afar. His theory seemed to align well to Derek's personality but for all of Derek Hale's successes omitting this truth, he had given himself up quite subtly and, Stiles assumed, on accident. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It was his love of riding that betrayed him, for what person capable of becoming a king in the forest would spend so much time on horseback? None of his family so much as sniffed in the direction of the stables if they hadn’t an excellent reason. The horses of Hale House had to be especially bred and trained, they required months on end to be made trusting enough to be handled by someone like Derek. Stiles didn't doubt he the loved the work, but it was something he did without the others. Any chance he saw he seized to disappear to the barn so he could feel the wind coursing past him faster than he was able to run</span>
  <span> on his own legs</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek was still strong, he could absorb pain and injury and knew if a herd of deer had crossed his path in the woods but he'd lost that most pivotal of abilities and the divide between he and his blood-family had grown wider. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles hated how much he was beginning to sound like Christian, but said nonetheless, “The Wood hasn’t abandoned you.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It has its war; it’s always been about war, you must understand that. You and I are inconsequential now and that thing,” he threw his finger at the blood-spattered creature sunning itself in the cross street, “cannot distinguish between us and its prey – it’s here to add to the death toll and for no other reason-,“</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s here because you’re a rider!” But they didn’t have time for spitting at one another and debating what the Wood was or was not, “</span>
  <span>It wasn’t your fault you shifted late, it wasn’t your fault you attacked your father-,</span>
  <span>”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek recoiled for him, his brow crushing down, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>What</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” he demanded, thrown by the sudden shift. Stiles had cursed Peter Hale to his face for saying a word about it and so glibly over tea as if his nephew weren’t a person at all, as if he wasn’t suffering still. This was the thing Stiles had sensed; it was the thing he had thought made Derek Hale no different from any other man hiding his dark passenger. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He had been right to consider it a spore, however, one tiny, hooked rootlet invisible to the eye that had seeded itself in a frightened young boy. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I know you attacked him and that you attacked Laura and since then you’ve been alone. I know you didn’t want to be.” Glass ground under his boots when Derek stepped back and Stiles knew he was losing the part of him that could hear the words and understand what they meant. He snatched out and held the cuff of Derek’s coat, keeping him from separating any more. “Wait, wait! It still pains you, I understand, trust me, please, of all people, I understand. But it’s misfortune that you’re angry with – misfortune is what took away your shift. I’m sure you blame yourself and that part of you blames the Wood too. But It didn’t leave you when there was no one and It will not strand us here-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You </span>
  <em>
    <span>hate </span>
  </em>
  <span>the </span>
  <span>Forest,</span>
  <span>” he scoffed, struggling to keep his voice low. Color crept onto his cheeks for the first time since Stiles had found him waiting in the drawing room. </span>
  
</p><p><span>“I hate what people have done to me because of it! I hate that I grew up in a place that thought the circumstance of my birth made me so inferior they blamed me when Scott McCall killed himself. </span><em><span>Himself. I was sixteen </span></em><span>and to them my hand was as good as the one that pulled the trigger of his father’s pistol. They even had me convinced they were right. People are what I hate. The Wood made me stand out to </span><span>Thalia</span> <span>– it showed me you</span><span>. I don’t hate the Wood. I didn’t understand it, but I do now. ” </span></p><p>
  <span>Derek’s stare left his briefly. The flicked past him and Stiles glanced over his shoulder to find that the </span>
  <span>shulk</span>
  <span> no longer sat with its back to them, but rather it was looming in the street, watching with bright yellow eyes. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>The Hermit, no matter how or when he appeared, required loneliness. Christian told him the difference between the reversed, withdrawn, doddering, old Hermit and the upright one, baring the Star of Solomon and a stave to lean on was one of them knew when to take the first step from their cave and the other didn’t.  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want you to tell me about everything you felt when your family stopped treating you like pack, I want to know so that I can grieve with yo</span>
  <span>u</span>
  <span>. I want you to tell me the good feelings too. But Peter and Christian are lost and – and,” his mind was spinning, he couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken longer than a few minutes. There was dam of words in his mind, millions of them rose like the tide when he was provoked, that never made it out into the open air. He could reshape the world with them, that’s why they feared him in Last Rest, because he had refused to break and go silent for so long and when he finally </span>
  <span>had</span>
  <span> his neighbors still remembered his flicking, forked tongue</span>
  <span>. T</span>
  <span>hey could still see the words in his eyes. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Not the words, he thought, they saw themselves reflected back and all the vicious, nettling urges they’d been taught to hide. When they saw Stiles it wasn’t Fox they cowered from, it was their own violent delights. Their short-comings. Their failures. For too many years he had thought he was to blame for the mirror of his soul. It wasn’t he that should have felt a burden, like vermin even, to them, it was they that should have plucked out their eyes. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Words were his magic.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>"Derek Hale, </span>
  <em>
    <span>get on the fucking </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>shulk</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0025"><h2>25. Take, Take, Take</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It was far too late for the looks of fear etched into the faces of the people of Last Rest. Some of them had flocked to their new masters’ heel. Others shut themselves in their houses. More still hung themselves from the branches of the old silver maple in the churchyard. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Daily, the white horse rode through town taking with it shifters discovered by the Argents, dissenters and those crushed in the hastily dug mine shaft cut into the mountain side. Dr. Martin was gagged to stop her shrieking every time the whispers overwhelmed her.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>From the shaft spewed mule led carts of coal and a cloud of black dust that turned houses and snow and faces a </span>
  <span>dingey</span>
  <span> gray. Banners flew from the Wall and the towers of the Mayor’s Manor displaying the silver lily of their new ruling house rather than the lamb resting beneath a fig tree that had been the symbol of their community for centuries. And least notably, only because so much else of Last Rest’s tradition and sovereignty had been destroyed, the town gates were left hanging open. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Through them poured hundreds of silver hunters and they brought shackled laborers to replace those native children that perished under the new order. They also brought machines the like of which Dr. Martin had not thought possible by the current engineering standards; machines able to plow through the icy mountain pass belching black smoke. They left flattened ground in their wake making the most treacherous three hundred kilometers of the known world passable to anyone with two legs. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You have this technology and you waste it on war,” Martin had said, standing on the overlook beside Kate Argent and her commanders. Below them a train of wagons and people that were dark spots from so high up, flowed steadily, shouting to one another. Kate yanked the chain of Lydia’s collar, forcing her in close enough to wrap an arm around her shoulders. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Dr. Martin was brought anywhere Kate went. She slept on a cot, chained to the foot on the woman’s bed. She was locked in a cage in what was once Mayor Hubbard’s dining room while her mistress did her work peeling flesh from her captives’ bones. </span>
  <span>She wanted to know if she was about to die. She didn't know how Kate planned to distinguish a cry of death meant for her from five to fifteen climbing out of Lydia daily. Kate probably didn't know either; she may have just wanted an audience. <br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because of the knowledge she learned by simply existing in every room Kate Argent existed in, she found the will within herself not to join the bodies being committed to the mass graves under the old factory ruins. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The doors to her office pushed open and her brother was escorted in by a maid who curtsied and hurried out of the room without lifting her eyes from the floor. This was how most people interacted with Mistress Argent; she hardly took notice. Her brother was gruff, but still attractive even if his looks were overlaid by long scars. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Dr. Martin sat motionless in her cage. Christopher’s gaze passed over her. He must have been accustomed to overlooking his sister’s science experiments. He still had no comment when he noticed the severed, bloody wolf’s head on Kate’s desk. </span>
  <span>If he was this practiced at overlooking her indiscretions, what must she have been like as a child? How many family pets and servants went missing when father wasn't looking?<br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Omegas,” Mistress said, tapping her fountain pen, “Every day</span>
  <span> more omegas.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Your trappers are green.” He was the only person Dr. Martin had seen that navigated the tumultuous sea of his sister’s temper successfully, but not even her sibling who had nursed at the same teat could anticipate her every churning thought.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh no, no,” she said, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>You </span>
  </em>
  <span>are their superior.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t spin gold out of shit, Kate.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t tell Father where to aim his forces if I haven’t a fucking clue where myself!” she screamed and stabbed her pen into the wolf’s head, “Omegas have no history. They have no bonds, no traditions and no rules. Even if I rip out their claws one by one they can only cry for God to save them. I need a real pack - we're entrenched at the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wall </span>
  </em>
  <span>for Christ’s sake, bring me a God-damned alpha!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“There are no more known packs - Satomi‘s was the last.“ He wasn't telling her anything she hadn’t heard countless times before. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The Argents overran the Walls towns, all of them, and yet, they went no further. Dr. Martin wouldn’t bite through her own tongue for as long as this was the status quo.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Mistress Argent drank herself dumb in the evenings and boasting this would be the final blow, the forest beyond the Wall would be a salt desert in a year’s time. But winter was waning. She never said outright just how vital their timing was; it became progressively more apparent with each passing day in her erratic behavior. She had her men flogged, smashed Marjorie Hubbard’s china while the woman watched, spent more and more time barred in her extraction chamber. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They were battling the Wood and managing to thwart It for the time being; as long as frost lay across the ground the trees sat dormant and their full power too. Not many recalled the Wall’s breaches past eighty or so years. Harder winters required more fuel to keep </span>
  <span>the </span>
  <span>hearths lit and into those fires went much of Last Rest’s history. The Martins weren't any different; Lydia remembered being young, wrapped in whatever could be found to keep warm in and watching tin types and old recipe journals shrivel and blacken when the woodcutters stopped coming. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She’d realized not long afterward if she were to survive, she would need all of the burnt knowledge returned and she went looking, when she was old enough, in any house along the Wall that would have her. The grimoire she compiled was hidden long before the Argents stripped off their masks, but the pages were still in her mind, each word preserved within her and as familiar as her mother’s hands. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>In the summer of 1034, a great toad with fungi sprouting from its warty back was recorded to have brought down a section of the Wall. It demolished the old church and a row of houses in Fountain Square. What it did not crush, it burned with viscous, liquid fire that spewed from its wide, fleshy mouth. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>In 1050, from the first day of spring to the last hours of summer</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> swarms of mosquitos, some as large as a man’s palm, fed on the villagers and spread disease. And not four years later, the Wood returned to smother every newborn living in a house not decorated with lamb’s blood. Mothers were said to have found their children dead in their cribs with yellow pollen caked around their noses, mouths and eyes.  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The Wood had not flushed the Argents out from its borders and it would not while the days were short and dark. Dr. Martin wouldn't take her own life, no matter how they tortured </span>
  <span>her,</span>
  <span> violated her, until she was finally able to watch them </span>
  <em>
    <span>burn</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She grinned. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>New posters appeared in the town square offering five hundred dollars to the person able to produce a live alpha werewolf. Shortly thereafter a line of coal stained, sallow faced men and women began to form outside of Kate Argent’s office. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Every citizen seemed to have their own fantastical tale of shifters prowling Last Rest. They accused one another of being agents of the Wood. Brawls would sometimes break out in the hallway before they could set foot in front of Mistress Argent. Ironically, the person with the most insight unto the </span>
  <span>darkworld</span>
  <span> of skin changers was Dr. Martin. She confessed this to Kate without needing any “special incentives”. For what was the harm now? The Argents had already caught and skinned all of her friends and there had not been many of them to begin with. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Posie</span> <span>Enswinger</span><span>, tear stained and blubbering after informing Christopher and Kate her mother-in-law had once danced across her porch with cloven hooves, was walked from the room by one of their armed enforcers. Her family was poor. The influx of bodies brought more supplies: cattle, grain, thread and needles, but she and her children were still starved by the rationing, ravenous to the point of turning on one of her relatives. As they all were, she was given a nickel for her troubles. </span></p><p>
  <span>Kate massaged her temples. “That cow’s put a ringing in my ears.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“These people have no understanding of what we are looking for,” Chris observed, “The school house teaches their children with rudimentary drawings; I doubt any of them has ever seen an actual wolf, much less a Wolf changeling.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that true, Doctor?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It is.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“And what would you suggest?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You shouldn’t have offered money. Famine is exacerbating your problem.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Kate laughed, “That's the problem with poor people; they're always hungry.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They heard six more cases; claw marks on barns, a stocked pond’s occupants all turned belly-up, bushes producing poisoned winterberries when in years past they had been safe to eat and so on. If the mouths of the townsfolk were to be believed, there was very little that was not a sign of </span>
  <span>wolfmen</span>
  <span> walking among them. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The next pair to stand for the Argents came in slowly, a striking young man pushing a wheelchair. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“David,” beamed Kate. She knelt in front of his chair and kiss the red jewel on his finger. Revered </span>
  <span>Whittmore</span>
  <span> no longer resembled the man Dr. Martin knew. She had heard he’d taken ill. She’d also heard, whispered under breath, the pox making weepy rashes on his skin came from a Two Oaks prostitute. Before returning to Last Rest, feminine health had been her occupation and she could vouch for those sex workers in the next town being healthier than most. Wherever he had contracted the disease the only thing she could guess with any certainty was that there must have been an animal of some kind involved; any livestock, really, that might have shit on its hooves.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He was putrid. Dr. Hadley clearly was not of much help for it to have advanced so far. Finally, his outsides matched his insides. His poorly veiled sexual indiscretions left more than one young man battered and sobbing in the Martins’ foyer, begging for her mother’s discrete aid. She hated to think of those boys that’d not sought help and hoped that if they lived, no matter how awful survival under the Argents’ rule was, they had the pleasure of watching this man rot away starting with his genitals and ending with his brain. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Landsey Smith had been one of them, his own son’s best friend, and she wondered as she did from time to time since that night, if Jackson ever found out. By the way he dutifully stood by his father’s chair, she decided he hadn’t.     </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“How can I help you?” Kate asked, smiling fondly. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>David weakly gestured to his son. His jaw was locked, his muscles partially frozen and a bit of drool </span>
  <span>dribbled</span>
  <span> out from the corner of his mouth. Kate pulled a kerchief from her bodice </span>
  <span>to dab </span>
  <span>his chin dry.   </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Father thinks he may know where you can find what you’re looking for,” Jackson answered for him.  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“There was a man traveling through with his family a few months ago, just after the new year. Father said he had glowing blue eyes.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Lydia’s heart stopped. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Blue?” asked Christopher, “Not red or gold?</span>
  <span>”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Reverend </span>
  <span>Whittmore</span>
  <span> grunted a string of horrible sounds that wanted very much to be words. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t go upsetting yourself, handsome,” Kate chuckled, stroking his cheek, “this man with the pretty blue eyes, how big was his family?</span>
  <span>”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“JACKSON DON’T!” Dr. Martin howled, banging on the bars of her cage. His eyes went </span>
  <span>owly</span>
  <span>, seeing her there. She’d been so quiet, he hadn't noticed her and until now, she wouldn't have blamed him for thinking she was dead already. His light eyes darted to each person in the room and back again. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Sweetie,” Kate said, standing, “this is incredibly important.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“There were five of them when they arrived-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“JACKSON!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“and they took a boy with them.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“And what should we call these visitors?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Hale.” </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0026"><h2>26. Death Letter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>These hunters weren’t human. It was all drilled itself into Christian’s bleary consciousness. He had, admittedly, lost quite a lot of blood, enough that his hands were pale and cold and unable to make a fist. Probably a bad sign. If he died here, like this, which was to say inconsequentially and tied to a sewer grate, Thalia had better commission a massive, gaudy statue of his likeness. If not for Stiles’s irritatingly oblivious existence, channeling the deep magic would have literally (not figuratively) ripped him apart. And there was no way he could have known, even with a powerful conduit less than a few steps away, he wouldn't still be cranked through a magical meat grinder for so much as putting his body physically within proximity of the Warren. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He could and often did walk through the wrinkles he found in reality, but that was a far cry from what he conjured in the alleyway. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He was a fucking hero and there was not a single person that could appreciate this fact other than himself. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“If you think a-sewer is,” he swallowed down </span>
  <span>a</span>
  <span> wad of blood, “</span>
  <span>gon-na</span>
  <span> do a </span>
  <span>damnthing</span>
  <span> to hide you, </span>
  <span>yer</span>
  <span> a, </span>
  <span>yer</span>
  <span> a fucking idiot.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Victoria Argent ignored him as she had been since abducting him. He had no doubt at all that she was disciplined so thoroughly she could truly drown out every word he said. That, obviously, wasn't going to stop him talking. The gag she subsequently wound over his mouth did, however. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Each motion she made down to the blink of her eye was off by a beat. Whatever befouled game she was playing with this city and with the Wood, it was more than any of her people was letting on. Some of them may have been men and women no more or less ordinary than any other, but the ones in charge, like her – in their retreat as the </span>
  <span>building</span>
  <span> came down a handful of those on the roof had </span>
  <em>
    <span>leapt</span>
  </em>
  <span> to the next one. There was every likelihood those people were smears of viscera on the neighboring rooftop but he couldn’t convince himself it was so. Those flying leaps would have made a Wolf hesitate.   </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vibrations shook the stone ceiling; a sound his captor seemed to be expecting. The sound was too silent to have been a shelling, though he wouldn't put such a profoundly stupid idea past whatever poor sod took control of Good River in times of crisis. A column of light was unsheathed from above and a young woman dropped into the tunnel with them. She landed on her side with a snarl and Victoria was suddenly blade-wielding, two long knives having appeared in either of her hands. In the street above gunfire rang out and shouting, a swell of noise that pounded in Christian’s ears until the two women pulled the manhole cover back into place. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you doing here?” panted the newcomer. There was shrapnel in her side. Christian had only enough time to see she was wounded before Victoria yanked the largest glass fragment free. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr. Harris’s information was good.” She continued to pluck shard after shard from the young woman and the girl flinched, bit into the leather strap of her quiver, but she did not cry out. The morons, she'd bleed to death with nothing obstructing blood flow. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s it?” the girl wheezed. She was going paler, moving more sluggishly as the acrid scent of her blood overpowered the sewer’s natural stench. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No. It’s following us.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to leave me here,” the girl said, nodding. She pushed herself up against the glistening brick wall, one hand weakly putting pressure on her injuries. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Alvar</span>
  <span> will come for you.” Victoria Argent move</span>
  <span>d</span>
  <span> back to Christian and she embraced him. Her strong arms squeezing him so tightly that he thought for a hysterical moment she meant to crush him, break every bone in his chest. She pulled away, touched the girl’s cheek and was gone, lifting herself up and out of the tunnel. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Christian began struggling against his gag. He tried to chew through it, tried to push it under his chin. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You won’t be able to – undo it,” advised the girl, “trust me.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He supposed she would know better than he. His fingers then. When his mind issued a command they tried to obey. His fingers, numbed and frigid, curled and uncurled. Three positions was all he needed of them, just three and he would never again ask another thing of the Wood. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Keep out of my mind,” growled the girl, squeezing her eyes shut. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Christian crouched by her side, “I’m sure there isn’t a thing you couldn’t hide from me in there,” he whispered. They both looked up at the cast iron gate. Its twisted metal looked like briars up so close. The iron vines followed his movement with their barbs. Beyond it, the walls were perfect sharp edges and they reached high into the darkness of her consciousness. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Will you still try?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you one of the Devil’s wives?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you silver death?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you want? You know I won’t free you. Both of us will – will die here before anyone comes.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Christian sat down beside her. His eyes danced across the gates of her thoughts. She was far younger than anyone he had come across to have mastered such an advanced technique. With enough time and every cookbook in his laboratory he would have been delighted by the challenge of cracking her skull and sifting through its secrets. Another time, another place. Blood was dribbling from the nose of his body where he had left it slumped against the grate. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You may do me the courtesy of dropping your charade,” he sighed, “I’m very impressed, it’s all very impressive.” He would've given whatever remained of his lifespan for a cigarette and a book of matches. If he must do all of the heroics on his own surely the multiverse could have spared him that. The girl stared at him with her lovely brown eyes, her thin brows pinched. “Trust </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span>, I’ve no sympathy for dying girls and no appetite for them either. Maybe if you were older, meaner and a man.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t understand.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m certain you don’t. I’ve only done this because I’d rather not meet my end in there,” he nodded his head to his body, “Hypoxia will kill me in soon. So, let’s both agree that neither of us has anything to say to one another and leave it at that.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The girl considered this. She was accustomed to... less intuitive prisoners he assumed. Honestly, with a beauty as tragic as hers, even if her captives easily saw past her words, her charms were probably enough to yield whatever she desired. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You opened the gateway to the Murk,” she said, her voice delicate on the ears. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“The Murk,” Christian mused. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Innocent people live in this city.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Let's play a game, it’s a simple one. You have been in the streets watching the war unfold. You don’t have to tell me what you have seen exactly, you need only to think of it. I won’t peek, I swear. As I said, squatting in your conscious mind is quite a bit less painful then sitting in my own.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Is there something I should have seen?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He chuckled, “There is unequivocally something you </span>
  <em>
    <span>have</span>
  </em>
  <span> seen.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve seen my friends being slaughtered by your monster horde</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“If you're sure, you're sure."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You think I’m missing something, but won't tell what? How could that possibly help you?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Dear girl-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Allison.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Allison, there's quite a bit you are missing. That nagging little voice which reminds you murder is generally frowned upon, for one. And for another anything I tell you undoubtedly becomes information for them. What I am suggesting you consider is not for them</span>
  <em>
    <span>, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but for you. And you have it already, locked up in this stunning labyrinth of yours.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A spray of pain whet his skeleton, each nerve ending splitting as his flesh fought to maintain these last few drops of enchantment. He was a home-stitched doll pulled between two wailing children and he summoned those few most cherished memories he’d always thought he’d want to revisit again before he no longer could. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He thought of the pointless sentimental contract stuffed into his desk drawer and the jewelry he kept there with it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Your kind are more human than they are,” she muttered, “and yet you’re prepared to die like this? They won’t find your body, you’ll have no burial.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think either of us should be deciding who possesses the most valuable humanity. There's no place for either of us in this new world your people are so horny for.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you have anything you'd like me to pass on for you?“ So she finally understood their position. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No.” When they had arrived in Good River and poor weather made venturing out of doors impossible, he had been laid out before the fire and worshipped long into the night, long after he had no more breath left to breathe. He knew then what he did now and it wouldn’t do for more words or trinkets to survive him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Allison’s hand fell away from her bloodied ribs. Her hand stood out shocking red in the dimness though her black gear looked unstained even though it was sopping and rancid. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s an excellent trick</span>
  <span>."</span>
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No trick,” she said, wiping her palm on her pants. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“The glass was real?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Very.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Christ, you cannot be serious-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They won’t kill him right away,” she said and then hefted herself to her feet, “if he’s cooperative.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“He won’t be and if I were you, I’d stay far, far away from whatever moron is tasked with keeping him.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you like me to say a prayer?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That is very kind, but God and I've said all we need.” He’d told the Father precisely what He could do with all of His good will and hadn’t gotten a word in return. Were he a superstitious person, his current situation could have been construed as a divine middle finger, but he was not and wasn’t it worse nothing happened for any other reason than it did? </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Allison shoved aside the manhole cover and shimmied into the blinding beam of light. He was left in darkness once all was settled again, </span>
  <span>but this time when it settled it was because he had died</span>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0027"><h2>27. Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> arranged </span>
  <span>the</span>
  <span> household along the front of the house. She retied the bow of one of her maid’s aprons, she whispered and smiled and hugged those girls that needed to feel the firm embrace of an alpha. These were </span>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> strongest women, her longest companions; Cora's nanny, Leanne, and Erica Reyes </span>
  <span>and Mother </span>
  <span>among them. She trusted only them to stand quietly for their uninvited guests. She had made her daughters presentable and Gaby too and tried to prepare all of them as much as they could be, but her edge was lean and they all felt it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Gaby shouldn't have been asked to do this. Her nightmares drenched her sheets, they </span>
  <span>left her plate untouched</span>
  <span>. She spotted the black coaches at the gate and her throat tied itself into a knot. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> settled at her side and discretely took her hand. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>We are only women to them, give them no reason to think otherwise. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The horses circled the looped drive before coming to a graceful stop outside the manor doors. The </span>
  <span>driver</span>
  <span> hopped down f</span>
  <span>rom</span>
  <span> his bench to pull open the lacquered door and out stepped a – Gaby blinked. Her mouth turned papery and the bobbins unspooled and unspooled but now as they dwindled, she no longer recognized them. Her fear was an ice pick. No one could be so powerful, it wasn’t... it wasn’t possible. Her visions made promises they seldom broke and even when they did it was in the Devil’s way, in the details that changed nothing!</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She gaped at this man that couldn't have been here, that couldn't have hoodwinked her sight for so long that every waking or dreaming thought she had of him was pure fallacy. He was the spider at the center of this web and at its center he should have sat! What spider leaves their place, their omnipotent threads? What – </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She schooled her features, pulled herself back together. If he was not a web spinner hanging in a fork of branches, waiting for his dinner, then he was a hunting spider, a trap builder and his trap was all around them now. If he knew enough to protect himself from the ever-watchful Wood, from Gaby herself even without knowing her, she was willing to wager he knew about the cellar under Hale House too and what was hidden there. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He removed his tall hat, handed it to his driver and smoothed a hand over his bald scalp. His black eyes grazed over </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> and then along her line of maidens and daughters. They didn’t understand what they were seeing and there was no way to warn them, to tell them how impossible his being here was. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You must be Mrs. Hale,” he said dotingly, extending his hand so he could kiss her knuckles.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>, please.” She did not sound at all like the woman Gaby knew, but rather like the sort of woman any man would be smitten to behold, a prize sow on market day. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Please forgive the intrusion,” he said, all hard R’s and sticky, sliding vowels, “I’ve come in order to acquaint myself with all of the surrounding farms, including yours. What a stunning house.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you, it was my late husband’s ancestral home.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I am sorry for your loss, my dear.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“There's no reason for you to mourn something I never have,” she teased and gave him a girlish wink. At this, the man with black eyes threw back his head and bellowed a laugh. His teeth were each so much sharper than they should have been, like the ridges of a carrion bird’s bill, and they filled his mouth in two crooked lines.  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm does my nose betray me or do I smell tea cake?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> chuckled, “Your nose is quite keen.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“With all this rationing going around, I thought I would not see another confection until the late summer.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I always squirrel away a bit of cane sugar for times like these.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Could I,” he licked his lips, “trouble you for a slice?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>More men had appeared out of the second carriage. Their stances were heavy, encumbered by whatever lay under their long, dark coats. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I would enjoy the company.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He nodded, looked over the waiting girls again, “Such a small staff for such a large house. You must get very lonely out here, so far from town.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“The issue of my loneliness stays between the wine cellar and myself,” she quipped and again the man was howling as she escorted him into the house. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Sir,” sounded one the men. They had made no move to follow. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, yes,” said their master, “I have one matter of business.” He brought </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> back around as if they were two swans on a lake and deposited her with her daughters. His men produced another person from their coach, this one bound and gagged and speckled with </span>
  <span>purple powd</span>
  <span>er. The boy’s pupils were dinner plates, swimming with whatever drug had made him dull.</span>
  <span>  <br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gaby fought another round of sickness and failed, she fell over onto her knees. Her vomit turned the snow greenish. Laura was by her side without a word. She instinctively put herself over her cousin to shield her. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Goodness,” said the black-eyed man. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Please forgive her,” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> said tautly, “she’s with child. Laura, dear, please.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No, no, Laura, no-,” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Laura muscled Gaby from the ground and Gaby kept begging her not to take her away, not to let this happen. Once they were out of sight, moving through the halls, Laura lifted her off her feet and sprinted into the closest room with a lockable door. She dashed Gaby onto a sofa and did the latch. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Laura, Laura, don’t let her do this, he wasn’t one of them, he wasn’t on the old tracks in May-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Dear God</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> Gabriella shut up!” Laura cried at her, spinning in a whirl of her skirts. She sunk to the floor and press her forehead into her palms, “You’re always saying such mad things, just shut up!” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A gun shot rang all through the house. Tears slipped past Gaby’s chin. Silence. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The others were coming inside; she heard their shoes scuff the floor and their voices gentle as the maids took their coats. Gaby wrapped up her knees to her chest.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Go to your room,” Laura said with resolve. She stood up and left in the same motion and she avoided Gaby’s spilling eyes as she did. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Gaby was close behind her, throwing open the door, her daughter’s faint pulse, where ever inside of her</span>
  <span> it was</span>
  <span> secretly beat</span>
  <span>ing</span>
  <span>, was the only clear path to her now that all other paths were false. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> was only protecting the others. One wolf for thirty and their cubs and for the humans that loved them? Any true alpha would have made this choice and that was why Peter Hale was not the alpha.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Isaac intercepted her in the corridor, pinned her arms down to her sides and shoved them both into a closet.  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Have you lost your mind!” </span>
  </em>
  <span>he hissed.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re only feathers!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He cupped her face, pressed his head to hers, “We are outnumbered,” his voice turned to a purr only for her ears, “don’t ask the others to kill. Don’t make the choice for them.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She gripped his wrists, squeezed closed her eyes, “I can’t see the path.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You can see me.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She shook her head, “You don’t understand what they’ve done; we are equals now, they’ve gouged out my eyes-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re </span>
  <span>just humans</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” she whispered, “no, I fear they are not.” He held her while her rage turned to more tears and she wept, mourned again those she had already mourned and those she had thought would not need her mourning. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The wolf that was Peter Hale crashed into Victoria Argent before she could make it to the carriage waiting beyond the city’s gates. He whipped her back and forth between his jaws, but it wasn't right, she was alone, alone. She stank like blood, like Christian. Peter’s snout dug into her chest, her belly and resurfaced with a crimson muzzle. She was dying, but she was laughing still. Laughing at him. When she finally choked and more blood erupted across her lips and her body </span>
  <span>lost its tension</span>
  <span>, </span>
  <span>she was still grinning. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The human that was Peter Hale was too shocked to act, to breathe, to think. He sat in the back of his mind facing a corner. Peter Hale didn't love things. He loved </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> because she was generous and kind and she had been his first lesson about love; when he howled, broke his chains, ran out into the night, it was not he that was punished for it. </span>
  <span>He did not love things because he knew better. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The wolf sprinted through the streets of this unfamiliar city. Each </span>
  <span>one</span>
  <span> looked the same, each turn was wrong, empty, scentless. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Thalia</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span> holds a picnic in the spring, on May Day. Peter doesn’t want to participate but she persuades him eventually after weeks of casually pushing it into dinner conversation. “It will be good for the children” and “Little </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>Maryse</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span> asked again about the maypole” and so on until he snapped at the attending servants for more wine.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Dear God, woman, fine.” </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Peter ignores the flowers, the ribbons, the white and tan summer linens blowing around him, the dozens of cubs scampering across the grounds. His sister needs </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>it</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>, this proof there's a place for their kind in the world. Peter doesn’t need a place. He needs drink and to stop dreaming of their mother’s vacant gaze. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He promised not to drink before dinner and finds a field full of screaming children and jaunty music does not suit his sobriety. He sits at one of the dressed tables and removes his hat in order to fan himself with it</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>. Hornets are drawn in by spills of sweet apple cider and abandoned plates. He flicks them off of the table. His sister is somewhere with the girls, dancing with the rest of their extended pack </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>under</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span> the ma</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>y</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>pole. He doesn’t like to think of all these strays as belonging to his family. </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>Thalia</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span> tells him what a backwards thing it is to think. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Smoke pricks at his nose. There’s a young man at another of the empty tables. His shirt is open low down his chest, his jaw is sharp, his white hair a curly, sweaty mess. He sees Peter looking and Peter looks away. He’s not certain why. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He finds a scent he knows, under the grit of corpses and musk of monsters. His nephew and the </span>
  <span>Fox boy were in the street wrenching a manhole cover up from the road. A great, white cat not far off, tearing limbs off a still shrieking Argent. There’s blood on all three, there’s blood crusted to the street and the sides of buildings. It’s one of Peter’s nightmares come to bare, the reason his father feared him so much. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He’s icy to Dr. Deaton’s new assistant. It’s not much of a hardship, seeing as beyond his sister, Peter is icy with everyone. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>They’re kissing in the attic between two stand</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>ing</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span> mirrors that reflect infinitely. He can’t get Christian out of his clothes and resolves to rip them</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span> off</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>. Peter fucks him, deciding this is the best way to stop his w</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>a</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>ndering thoughts and eyes. </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>He ignores the rest of himself, the part that knows </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>he’s in too deep</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Peter finds him again the next day, his wolf starving for more. Whatever contrived bit of conversation drivels out of him ends quickly, silenced by urgently grasping hands and mouths. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Christian makes him quiet. Not just his voice, but all those little tugging ones in his mind. When Christian bats away his newspaper and climbs on his lap, legs bare, shirt loose and billowed, he's no longer </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>Thalia’s</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span> brother or his nephew’s only friend</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span> or his father’s demented son</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>. He’s himself. A self he had not known existed. He doesn't hate this person he's becoming. But when they're apart....</span>
  </em>
  <span> <br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>They dragged </span>
  <span>a</span>
  <span> body out of the sewer. </span>
  <span>Stiles pumped on his chest, working frantically to restart his heart. </span>
  <span>The boy couldn’t </span>
  <span>hear the nothing of the corpse like Peter could</span>
  <span>. The </span>
  <span>humming life of a heart and rushing blood and blinking lashes</span>
  <span> were constant</span>
  <span> nothing </span>
  <span>sounds until there was </span>
  <em>
    <span>real</span>
  </em>
  <span> nothing, until there was a hole filled in by the rest of life moving on without it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stiles,” Derek said miserably, putting a hand on </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> shoulder </span>
  <span>but</span>
  <span> Stiles threw him off. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Stop distracting me</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” He leaned and blew breath down Christian’s throat. Christian’s fingers were studded with rings usually. He wore only one today. There was no more Peter Hale. He can't go to them, he can't hold the dead body of his – of his.... He’d never known what they were. Something that </span>
  <span>never required language</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I won’t stop you when you leave.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I think we are far passed my being able to do something like that, darling boy. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Peter stepped off the path. He wandered into the far-reaching forest. He shed his name. He shed his skin. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles wiped the sweat out of his eyes with his wrist. Christian’s eyes stared at nothing. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“C’mon,” he muttered. He wasn’t sure why he still tried. Maybe it was because he could not imagine the next moments. They were still in the </span>
  <em>
    <span>before</span>
  </em>
  <span> and he couldn’t, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>could not</span>
  </em>
  <span> bring himself past </span>
  <span>it</span>
  <span>. Time was slipping all around, leaving him behind, pulling Christian further away. How bizarre</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> how fucking totally bizarre the dead were. </span>
  <span>The</span>
  <span> last Stiles had seen him he was moving, breathing, talking and now there was nothing before him </span>
  <span>that</span>
  <span> seemed like his friend. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Blood oozed from the corpse’s eyes and Derek pulled him </span>
  <span>away</span>
  <span>. He had</span>
  <span>n’t</span>
  <span> realized how vigorously he was still trying to will Christian’s spirit to return, how loudly he’d been cursing him, demanding he come back. He couldn’t die this way, he couldn’t die alone away from the light. This was a Fox child’s fate, it was </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span>, not his. Derek held him to his chest and Stiles fought him. How could he not understand? This wasn’t how it was meant to happen. If he hadn’t left Christian in the high street, he would be –  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The Wood had abandoned them after all. They were disposable moving pieces</span>
  <span> on a board</span>
  <span>. With ragged breath, tears flooding his eyes, </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> body went rigid with grief. Derek kissed his temple, he whispered to him, he rocked him and refused to let go</span>
  <span> no matter how Stiles thrashed.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Beyond where they sat, he spotted a wolf with its head down</span>
  <span> and blood on its muzzle</span>
  <span>, smelling along the stone street. It came no closer. It turned</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> after a time</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> and ran into the city.</span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0028"><h2>28. Catch Hell Blues</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>There stood three pools of water. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They each still burned or bled.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve done everything you’ve asked!” he cried. The Harvestman blended into the nighttime woods. It both was and was not part of the dormant forest and played tricks on his eyes. “Will they all die anyway?!” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>There stood not three pools of water, but twelve. No one had ever peered into these mirrors that was not born from the forest. They weren’t hidden or secret, it was that no one had known to look and what he saw in them was the same as before: the truth of things as they had happened, were happening, had yet to happen at all. In one, Fox crouched in the rushes. In </span>
  <span>another</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> Doe looked out from the long grass. In </span>
  <span>another</span>
  <span>, </span>
  <span>Bear watched the coursing river. </span>
  <span>And Tortoise walked along the marsh</span>
  <span>es</span>
  <span> and Crow chattered in the alders and Coyote minced silently </span>
  <span>across </span>
  <span>the creek bed. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The </span>
  <span>glimmering </span>
  <span>pools grew murky. Light no longer reflected off them </span>
  <span>nor did it</span>
  <span> radiate from them. Badger and Eagle and Snake and Catamount vanished from the looking glasses, and all the rest, until there remained only four. The Four and one other that evaded the forest’s sigh</span>
  <span>t</span>
  <span>. And the Wood was crippled without them, wildly swinging for balance, it</span>
  <span>s</span>
  <span> animals, its growing things all turning savage without i</span>
  <span>t and devouring one another. A shudder went through the wilderness and Stiles spun around as a high wind picked up and cut past him. The heart of the forest was out there, hidden somewhere that existed all places and all times, a being or a mind without shape, grieving with the power of ten billion trees. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Stiles stands in the wild fields of a time long before his own. Fox sits by his side. They are watching a girl, not so much older than himself, dressed in </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>buck</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>skins and ragged pieces of clothing that came from a time earlier still. The girl guts a deer, its hind leg on her shoulder as she works. A crow watches from the tree line.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Stiles glances down at Fox and Fox looks up at him. The crow is in love. It has never known the feeling before, it has never known any feelings before. It wishes to walk upright as a man and to love this girl as a man would. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Her village is small and primitive. Ancient machines litter the paths between shanties, long rusted and good for nothing now but decaying. The people know nothing of medicine, they know nothing of farming, and they will die out soon too, their bones scattered here and there. They are the last of their kind. Crow is filled with such profound sorrow when it stands in their cemetery, the plots unmarked and unembellished, nothing but bumps in the ground for growing </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>weeds and pale lilies</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>There will be no one left to bury the girl before the end –</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles dragged in breath like he’d not taken one in hours. The twelve animals still race</span>
  <span>d</span>
  <span> in circles around and around, chasing one another across his vision each time he blinked. </span>
  <span>Derek’s hands were on his shoulders, steadying him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You said to pull you out,” he was saying, like he had done something wrong. The </span>
  <span>scrying</span>
  <span> bowl laid between them, three drops of </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> blood pooled at the bottom of it and looking pitch black. He patted Derek’s arm a few times, nodding and still trying to remember how to breathe. There were endless darken</span>
  <span>ed</span>
  <span> pathways where the Wood intertwined with the mind. Too many turns and Stiles could have lost his way back. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They were still </span>
  <span>hidden off the road </span>
  <span>in the rambling bank of black willows that grew along it. Smoke hung on the horizon, its belly glowing orange with still blazing fire. The city of Good River itself was hidden away by distance and destruction. What he could see of it through the branches was a gray smudge on the frozen wetlands. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you see anything?” Derek pressed. He wanted to know if his mother yet lived and his sisters, </span>
  <span>if </span>
  <span>Isaac, Vernon</span>
  <span> and</span>
  <span> Erica were safe and healthy; he wanted desperately for anything at all that might infer he was not more alone now than he had ever been. Stiles could</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t look at him </span>
  <span>and </span>
  <span>not see the child banished beyond the Wall with no place to sleep and no one to turn to. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing’s happened,” Stiles lied, because he couldn't give Derek Hale the truth</span>
  <span>:</span>
  <span> that he did not know, that he was terrified, that his father may have numbered among the dead in Last Rest and so may have everyone he had ever known. Even if it was too late and </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> was slain and mounted on the lawn of Hale House for all to se</span>
  <span>e, </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> answer would have been the same. He could keep Derek’s hope alive even if his own dwindled to nothing. “We might still be able to make it to Fever Hill before it does.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek nodded, </span>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Peter knows what he’s doing.” Stiles bit through his cheek to keep from sobbing. </span>
  <span>He couldn’t stand to imagine what sort of place the world would become once Derek realized just how lost they were. He would keep it from happening for as long as he possibly could. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles cleared his throat, blinked up at the canopy to clear his vision, “I can keep watch. You should sleep.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Wake me up before midnight,” Derek said</span>
  <span>.</span>
  <span> There would be more people on these roads soon, once the fires went out. Derek leaned back against the wagon wheel, his arms crossed against the nipping chill. Stiles doubted Derek would really fall asleep.</span>
  <span> Stiles wouldn’t be able to</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles let his mind trip along up a better stream than this one. He thought of Derek in the orchards outside of Last Rest when the trees were shedding petals. </span>
  <span>He thought of both of them as different people that had not been withheld from good, uncomplicated lives and of kissing him under those branches until the sun sank low and the peeping frogs been to trill. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You've been in direct communication with the Yew?” implored </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>. Her wits stretched and stretched and each time they did she thought there couldn't possibly be any elasticity left in her. Her niece sat cross legged on the tea table, looking beaten down. They were well passed </span>
  <span>accusations and punishment</span>
  <span>, the alpha in her be damned. It barked and snarled, clawed under the door of her thoughts</span>
  <span>. S</span>
  <span>he poured herself a glass of water to steady her hands. </span>
  
</p><p><span>“Recent event</span><span>s</span> <span>should illustrate very well why I ordered her never to tell you,” Catherine said. </span></p><p>
  <span>Sometimes she wondered if what attracted Wolf to her family had been her father’s temper. He was rage, his mind sick with demons or fever and worsened when he drank. She'd been terrified she would become him, especially when she realized the animal inside of her was taking a different shape than Peter’s. She wanted to throw her sister on the floor and kick away her cane. She wanted to bite down on Gabriella’s nape until she wept. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>But </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> was not her nature. She was Alpha Hale, the first of her </span>
  <span>name</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You were right to keep it from me,” she said, “The pack is more vulnerable for my actions. If we have no faith in others we may as well not exist at all.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“My God </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>, you are such a drip,” Catherine groaned, “Gabriella, she will never say so, but your Aunt </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> is extremely angry at us for what we’ve done and should we survive the night, we shall never lie to one another again. There, have we made amends? Can we now conduct ourselves as women?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry Aunt </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>,” Gaby peeped. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Surely the Wood missed an opportunity when it passed </span>
  <span>Catey</span>
  <span> over. </span>
  <span>But that was another thing </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> would never say. She was Alpha, but she was also a younger sister and there were some things one just did not admit to one’s older sister. </span>
  <span>Mainly kindnesses.</span>
  
</p><p><span>“There is nothing to apologize for,” </span><span>Thalia</span><span> told her and when she looked up, she looked so much like Derek had at her age that it hurt in the dregs of </span><span>Thalia’s</span><span> heart. God and she was pregnant, too. Hale House stood because </span><span>Thalia</span><span> never wanted another girl to go through what she had while pregnant with Laura</span><span>, it stood so children like hers would not have to be born in </span><span>a </span><span>hayloft, so that they would not be hunted as soon as the baby wailed. </span> <span>“All that matter</span><span>s</span><span> now is that we get these fucking monsters out of my house.” </span></p><p>
  <span>“Here, here,” Catherine agreed, thudding her cane on the floorboards. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“The</span>
  <span>y</span>
  <span> are hidden from the Wood’s sight,” said Gaby, “I thought I knew all paths and they didn't exist in any of ours. I think now that, maybe, they’ve always been and what I thought was shadowed and impassable was really them. Now that they’re here, our path is dark too.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That does</span>
  <span>n’</span>
  <span>t mean we are doomed,” her mother clarified, “</span>
  <span>it means only that until we can disentangle ourselves, we no longer have the advantage of Gaby’s bridge to the Wood.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“How are they doing this?” The answer couldn't have hoped to help them now, but it was seeming more and more possible that the next several hours would determine some sort of shift and the next time she looked Gerard Argent in the eye, she wanted to know what sort of devil was wearing his face. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“The Wood cannot watch what is a shadow above it,” explained Gaby. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Catherine said, “</span>
  <span>W</span>
  <span>e are hosting an ancient enemy, one that has destroyed most of the Forest and those that live there already.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We </span>
  <span>are </span>
  <span>matched </span>
  <span>in strength and speed. Engaging them with violence ends in fire, it’s the last </span>
  <span>thing I saw be</span>
  <span>fore my channel collapsed.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They want you to fight back,” Catherine advised, “They know the numbers are against us, that’s precisely why they shot that poor boy and they’ll keep pushing until you give them a reason to burn this house to the ground.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>What neither of them said aloud was that they desperately needed Peter. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> knew it better than they gave her credit; his name had been the first thought to cry out in her mind when she knew Liam would be slain and she could do nothing to stop it. And was his voice calling back to her to stay where she was, to think of her </span>
  <span>children and those cubs waiting silently under the house for her to save them. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She said, hands coming to rest, clasped before her, “We have the love of Fever Hill; they cannot drag us through the streets as beasts and they cannot vanish us. They are a big clan, but our town is too large to overthrow without cooperation and I have to assume their numbers are spread fairly thin between this side of the valley and the Wall.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They’ll be watching the roads and the Preserve, the tannery as well, I should think,” Catherine </span>
  <span>put in. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I am starting to think Dr. Deaton’s tardiness is no coincidence.” Without a witch they found themselves backed dangerously close to a corner. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> cursed herself once more for her selfishness. She had had two casters and two psychics in her midst and still she had found a way to run them off or frighten them to silence. She cursed Peter too for </span>
  <span>gallivanting</span>
  <span> off as soon as the opportunity presented itself. He could have helped her mend what she'd broken and instead, true to form, he had driven the spike deeper to suit his own </span>
  <span>ends. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She hated him and she missed him, and she took another breath to stop her mind ricocheting with panic. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>, this man you’re about to face is as much the alpha of his people as you are of yours,” her sister warned, “He’s as much of one as </span>
  <span>F</span>
  <span>ather was. He will undoubtedly be willing to let you kill him in order to mobilize the </span>
  <span>people</span>
  <span> against us. The only thing we can be certain of is that the moment we are exposed is the moment all of this that you have built comes crashing down. </span>
  <span>He came here in person to oversee our extermination and that should scare all of us, very much.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Gaby slid off the table, a frown on her mouth, “They hid in the sun’s glare all this time – but they had to </span>
  <span>know</span>
  <span> coming here would give them away. The town be damned, they’ve proved already they don’t need the cooperation of ordinary people</span>
  <span>. If they did, why has no one heard of them before? Why haven’t they canvased in the shanties for enlistment? And if they have no need and no fear of our neighbors, why then are we still breathing?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Catherine tapped her foot a few times as she thought, and the sound was familiar and comforting. She said, “We are also a big clan, although, if the letters from my friends are to be trusted, the fighting is not happening any where close to here. Last Rest is the nearest Wall Town and its weeks away </span>
  <span>on</span>
  <span> horseback, even if you pushed the animal to death.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>There are no coincidences, he</span>
  <span> chose us,” Gaby insisted.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s possible we have something he needs.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> fingers grazed the locket she wore under her dress, one made of sterling silver and engraved with her children’s names. She'd found it on her night table the day after Cora was born. It had still smelled like Derek’s hands and when she was able to stand</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> she went to his room and curled up around him while he slept. He didn’t know yet that his new sister was a wolf, that her perfume was so strong as soon as she was taken from the womb that </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> and Peter had known it </span>
  <span>before her first </span>
  <span>cry</span>
  <span>. He hadn’t known what such a thing could mean for him, not entirely. And despite any of it, he’d had Cora Margret Hale’s name engraved above his own. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Headwoman </span>
  <span>Francis </span>
  <span>is a good friend of mine,” she said, “we will hold a banquet this evening and supply Argent's people with food and drink and while they feast, we will sneak the others out of the cellar and through the Bailey Woods to her cabin outside the foothills. They</span>
  <span> will</span>
  <span> have to run all night, but from there they can disperse into hiding without compromising their identit</span>
  <span>ies</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“And you plan to </span>
  <span>offer yourself up to this heretic?” challenged Catherine her thin brow peaked. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“As long as my pack is under this roof the fight isn’t fair. I cannot both protect them and drive these people out. Gaby, you will </span>
  <span>take the girls to the cellar and show them </span>
  <span>the way. Your mother and I will follow tonight. Go pack your things</span>
  <span> and</span>
  <span> don’t be seen.” Gabriella hugged her tightly and her mother too.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Stop pouting, child,” Catherine said, petting her hair, “or that baby will come out scowling all the time.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I hope so,” Gaby muttered. She left the room and </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> supposed this was their way, that gentle goodbyes were meaningless between them. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“When did we get so good at lying to our children?” Catherine wondered out loud she moved to the bar and poured them both a glass of whatever was closest. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“When we realized we couldn’t fool each other anymore." They raised their glasses.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What should we drink to on the eve of our demise?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> was very glad to have her here. She would always have done what she must, but it was far better not to do so alone. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“To good company.”</span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0029"><h2>29. The Union Forever</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><span>The fires steamed on the ground, some still embers, but no longer threatening to reduce what remained of Good River to </span><span>ash</span><span>. </span> <span>The air was heavy with cries. Some of the others had stuffed their ears with cotton, the ones with more hunting seasons behind them had done so before the engagement had even begun. Jonah said eventually you grew a new sense for this sort of thing. At first, Allison refused to plug up her ears. It was important she remember what war sounded like, how it looked, who was caught in the fighting and who was a victim of the ensuing chaos. </span></p><p>
  <span>Her father was rumored among the foot soldiers to sleep on the battlefield once the fighting was done. Christopher never mentioned doing such a thing, but he was certainly the type for it. She wanted to be like him, cool in the face of bloodshed, but by nightfall, she was ripping strips off her undershirt to drown out the sounds of shrieking parents, of husbands and wives, of children. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She followed Griggs to a church up at the top of the hill. In her mother’s absence, she would hold command, though the squadron leaders were performing perfectly well without her. Years of training, of waking and breathing and sleeping strategy, and now it was coming together, their formations and plans all virtually untested for a century, and still they had found some victories here. They may not have been successful in capturing the sort of M</span>
  <span>urkling </span>
  <span>her Aunt Kate had in mind, but they had held the city, repelled the legions of Hell for a day through shear adaptation. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Kate wouldn’t appreciate any of what had happened here, but Gerard would be pleased once word reached him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Already her army was celebrating the spoils and the dead. They hung the corpses of the Murk’s creatures from the gates and mounted their ghastly heads on pikes, they even danced in the street wearing the still bloodied pelts. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The church door pushed open and roaring from within made Allison take a step back, hands hovering over her knives. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A scaled, white cat charged at a phalanx of rangers and they held their pole arms steady to keep it trapped between the alter and their spearheads. The beast frantically blustered, snapping its fantastic jaws any time they tried to inch closer. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re </span>
  <span>wait’n</span>
  <span> on the apothecary,” Jonah said without turning away. Allison nodded. This would be the wealth of their success, dozens of live specimens. Given the circumstances, she was still a bit shocked at how many they had been able to restrain. She'd heard th</span>
  <span>at the </span>
  <span>monsters fought to the</span>
  <span>ir</span>
  <span> death</span>
  <span>s</span>
  <span>, with hides littered by arrows</span>
  <span> and</span>
  <span> some,</span>
  <span> if the fight was a losing one, </span>
  <span>would throw</span>
  <span> themselves from rooftops or into the icy river rather than </span>
  <span>give </span>
  <span>them</span>
  <span> the satisfaction of </span>
  <span>taking trophies</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A little round face peered out from the choir loft, just above the spitting </span>
  <span>shulk</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Jonah,” Allison said urgently, touching his arm. He followed her gaze. </span>
  
</p><p><span>“I think there’s a few of ‘</span><span>em</span><span>,” he shrugged, slicing a wedge out of his apple, “Can’t get to ‘</span><span>em</span><span> until the </span><span>beast’s</span> <span>outta</span><span> the way.” </span></p><p>
  <span>For a moment, Allison thought she saw a white-haired man leaned on one of the stone columns, </span>
  <span>his</span>
  <span> eyes gaging her, his mouth lilted. But when she </span>
  <span>looked fully at the specter</span>
  <span>, there was no one. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“How did those children get up there?” This church sustained as much damage as </span>
  <span>any other</span>
  <span>. It still held together, </span>
  <span>the</span>
  <span> ceiling had not caved, but the south wall was a heap of glass and bricks and wooden beams. Somewhere in that pile </span>
  <span>was</span>
  <span> what remained of the loft steps. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <span>dunno</span>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p><span>“Get it under control,” she ordered, “and feed those children.” Allison needed air, but she wouldn't find it outside. She pushed through the doors to compose herself, even so. She was beginning to forget what clean air smelled like and it had only been a day; the foulness of the wind never made it into heroic song. She looked out over the jagged skyline and there must have been some part of her that knew already, because the </span><span>notion</span> <span>sounded like an echo finally returning to her ears: her mother would miss her next check in. </span> <span>This was what her grandfather had prepared her for. When her family had separated to complete their tasks, he had told her that sometimes friends would walk into the fray and not be seen again. </span></p><p>
  <span>She grew into her grief standing there on the overlook. Allison pulled the cloth from her ears. Victoria had beat that young man to death and his mate killed her for it. She struggled to exist in a world in which her mother could be her mother and teach her how to stand tall and know what was honorable and also be this silent agent that shattered bonds not so different from their own. She held back tears for her mother, because they didn't know her like Allison did. And she floundered in revulsion over what Victoria had done. She had taken it too far; the magician didn't have to die to accomplish what they had come here to do. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Her family anticipated the loss of life; it was war the Murk instigated and in war there was death. Let that miserable jungle bare the weight of so many slaughtered people. </span>
  <span>The Argents hunted those that hunted them, they didn't murder openly and without good reason. Her mother broke their most sacred creed and she was castigated for it. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Allison</span><span> knew </span><span>it</span><span> and still it hurt, hurt from her skull to the soles of her feet, hurt like she had lost her legs, her arms, everything that gave her the ability to do what must be done. The </span><span>shulk</span><span>’s</span> <span>whipping warning growls shook the hill and she wished viciously that they would just run the thing through and be done with it. A tear tripped down cheek and she swiped it away. </span></p><p>
  <span>She descended into the square where tents were being pitched for the night.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You,” she said choosing a group of young women at random. They snapped to attention, each of them jumping up off their campfire stools. “Your name?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Donovan.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Allison cleared her throat; it did nothing to ease her strangled vocal cords. The white-haired </span>
  <span>man</span>
  <span> sat on stacked artillery crates at the edge of her eye, elbows to knees. With a sniff she said stoutly, “Tell me what behaviors you observed in the enemy.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Erm</span>
  <span>, murderous behavior, Captain.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Not as they engaged you. What was their disposition toward the civilians?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Shaw, sir,” said the woman to her right, “There was a </span>
  <span>lion-dog</span>
  <span> beast in the lower town as we arrived that took heavy cannon fire even though it </span>
  <span>musta</span>
  <span> seen the shells.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Allison licked her lips and backed away from them so she could address everyone within earshot, “Who else has seen strange behavior in the creatures, describe it.” She should lay down and rest, weep somewhere privately, but it wasn’t in her to succumb yet. The thought of wailing on her own while there were mothers and daughters in the wreckage still trying to find each other’s bodies made her too electric to stop moving.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“There was a shadowy thing pulling the corpse of an old man from under a fallen wall.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Women</span>
  <span> - </span>
  <span>made of flowers </span>
  <span>- </span>
  <span>in the belfry by the water</span>
  <span>, </span>
  <span>they had babies in their arms.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We chased a bear into a work house, found some old fuck trying to rape the girls hiding there... the creature didn’t fight us, it let itself be slain.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They don’t bother with the wounded.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They dragged their wounded </span>
  <span>away</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Their dead, too.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>I saw ripples in the air, like water or… or like light. Civilians were following it and they weren’t shouting or pushing, the babies were silent, the dogs with them didn't bark. I thought maybe it was a witch, I thought I should kill it, whatever it was, but it just, it led them to a blown-out part of the city walls and they all climbed through. And then it was gone.” </span>
  <span>A round of stomping feet seconded this account and a few more tales of similar phenomena all around the city joined it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Mother, what’ve we done</span>
  </em>
  <span>?</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Captain?” asked Donovan, cautiously. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Open all the cages,” she said and when no one twitched she yelled, “NOW!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They broke off and their chatter picked up as they began assembling teams to work the heavy latches and oxen to pull the cages to the edge of the city. Jonah came sprinting down the hill, drawn by the commotion. He found her at the center of the square and was demanding what madness had befallen the squadrons from twenty paces away. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You told them to </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you know that they call the Murk, the Wood?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Have you completely lost your </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>mind</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>?</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>No, she had gained it. “Gerard told me a story about the first leader of the clan and how she was raped by a winged monster that flew down from beyond the mountains. Its seed became a child and that child was never sick. He was faster and stronger and more intelligent than other children and the village feared him, so his mother took him away to live the rest of their lives in the forest. He married and had more children of his own, and they took husbands and wives and bore children and for hundreds of years we lived in secret. But there were more monsters like the winged creature, and they came from a dark place farther than any person had ever walked. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>The monsters</span>
  <span> also corrupted women who bore corrupted children. There would be no more humans left if our clan did nothing. So, they killed the monsters one at a time until there remained only four. If the Murk has been preying on humans like chattel since the beginning, why now is it sacrificing its horde to protect them?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Jonah stepped in so as not to be overheard and whispered, “Allison, don’t give in to the enemy’s witchcraft. It pollutes minds. We need these animals, don’t do this.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We provoked this fight and I no longer know why that is, do you?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We came to take a live prisoner, just one, no need for </span>
  <span>fight’n</span>
  <span>; it’s the goddamn Devil’s tree that sent a legion after us!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Can’t you see how many times a conversation like this has happened in a thousand years? They moved first, we were only protecting our own, they raze a farm, we burn acreage as far as the horizon and there’s never an end! Today we attacked unarmed men and the Murk answered their call for aid. It could have sacked the city. We should all be dead but instead of destroy us, it harmed only those who engaged and pulled innocent bystanders away from the fighting. I was taught that they were mindless, bloodthirsty beasts but by all accounts, the dumbest animals of the day were </span>
  <em>
    <span>us</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What would you have us do, Ally? </span>
  <span>S’pose</span>
  <span> your thousand-year-old grudge really did happen on a lark. </span>
  <span>S’pose</span>
  <span> not a word of it’s true and </span>
  <span>Gerard is just as much a victim of poor record keeping as the rest of us. Should we let the Murk overrun the Wall towns? How about the valley? Let it spread unchecked all the way to the sea, just like the good ‘</span>
  <span>ol</span>
  <span> days.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” she said, pulling on her gloves, “we’re going to follow those creatures back to where they came from and we’re going to strike a new treaty. We are going to stop this insanity before it can go on any longer. I don't expect you to come with me, but don’t get in my way.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Cavalry at her back and the sun quickening on the horizon, Allison went to the row of steel cages. She walked the line of them, searching for any creature that would hold her eye. Her tutors</span>
  <span>’</span>
  <span> lessons rang in her mind as she look</span>
  <span>ed</span>
  <span> them over and pulled</span>
  <span> in</span>
  <span> the scent of their musky bodies and hay lined cells. They told her she was a silly little girl grasping at fantasies and that these </span>
  <span>thralls were nothing but killers. She came to the </span>
  <span>shulk</span>
  <span> they had wrangled out of the church and crouched by it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Its growl was guttural, a deadly rasp that put terror in her belly. Even though bars separated them she felt the full weight of her delicate flesh and bones. It bared its yellow fangs. If she was wrong, this thing would kill her, and it would be no more than any of them deserved. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We're armed for our protection,” she muttered to it, “I'm a,” </span>
  <em>
    <span>I am alone, I am frightened,</span>
  </em>
  <span> “I am a direct descendant of Crow and I ask that you take us to your master so that we can end this.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She touched the bars and they were frozen, the coldness eating through even the wool lining of her gloves. </span>
  <span>Standing so close to the creatures was notabl</span>
  <span>y</span>
  <span> colder than the rest of the city and she thought that in the summer, the opposite might by true. Of one thing she could be certain, intelligent or not, these animals were special, as much a part of the winter itself as they were part of the forest.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Crow perched on the cage, head flicking side to side as it observed the </span>
  <span>shulk</span>
  <span>. They were made of the same stuff and so was half of her. For the first time since she was very small, when she looked at Crow straight on, she did not see a mangy, flightless ghoul. Not all in her family were able to see it, the creature that had first descended on her ancestor; they told her to ignore it, never to give in should it whisper darkly when she was alone. She’d thought as a child that it meant to pick the flesh off her bones while she slept, but it never came closer, never spoke, it merely watched from a high perch. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>And now, as she aimed toward the center of the </span>
  <span>F</span>
  <span>orest</span>
  <span> with any in her company brave or insane or witless enough to follow, it watched her with clear eyes and a new molting of black feathers. They regarded one another because she could not decide what the new health of her life-long haunting meant. Gerard would have her bow finger if not her head for desertion. And the Murk? When she did as </span>
  <span>her family </span>
  <span>told </span>
  <span>her </span>
  <span>and turned her back</span>
  <span> to it</span>
  <span>, what had it done to punish her for denying it?</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Watched, waited. Nothing. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Kate wouldn’t understand; her grandfather, her father, none of them would. She was not entirely certain that she did. She missed her mother. She said a silent prayer for the magician even though he had asked her not to. She could have done more to save him, even if he died in the street rather than under it, she could have done </span>
  <em>
    <span>something. </span>
  </em>
  <span>War stopped her from preserving her own honor and without it, what was she? She may not wander the city raping and plundering but acting against the Code made her no better than a marauder. It made Victoria no better. </span>
  
</p><p><span>Allison threw open the barred cage door and stepped back </span><span>so that</span><span> the </span><span>shulk</span> <span>could emerge</span><span>, frightening the horses behind her. </span></p><p>
  <span>“Go,” she told it. The cat roared at her and made off into the snow, disappearing, white-on-white but for the black stripes on its sides. The rest of the cages were unlocked, and the monsters barreled away after the first. Her soldiers and their hounds made chase, stampeding from all sides and Allison Argent too slung herself up into her saddle and cried loud and clear, spurring her stallion forward.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0030"><h2>30. Hello Operator</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>As she watched Gerard Argent drink her wine and eat her food, she thought about Gabriella. Her niece had more to share with her, </span>
  <span>as </span>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> daughters discretely packed a bag each. She knew a self-hating monster when she met one, even without Gaby’s brief history lesson in the hall. She had been one. Her father had been one. Gerard Argent ate his supper like he despised it for sustaining him. He didn’t make conversation with his entourage. They were happy to gorge themselves as if they and the Hales were old friends. But not Gerard. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She supposed he really believed executing Liam on her doorstep would be enough provoke his fight. He still played nice, he still smiled at her like she was a highly bred lady. When he wasn’t speaking to someone, he withdrew to a dark place of waiting</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> took another sip from her goblet. His people were all still armed, even at the dinner table; he could snap his fingers and have her head whenever he wished. She was certain he wanted her dead and Catherine and any member of her pack that crossed his path. And yet. And yet. And yet. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She considered drinking more. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr. Argent,” she said instead. Catherine made no motions to indicate this was the moment they were dreading. </span>
  <span>Her fork and knife kept sawing on her plate, her readiness palpable</span>
  <span>. “</span>
  <span>Have you bought property in the area?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He dabbed his mouth with a napkin. Usually no one sat at his end of the long table. She assumed a table had two heads so that a husband might preside over one of them. She had very little inclination to find out for herself. </span>
  <span>That seat was always meant for her killer</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m looking for someone, actually.” He emerged back into the room</span>
  <span>; h</span>
  <span>is body suddenly a living thing rather than an automaton </span>
  <span>vacant</span>
  <span>ly</span>
  <span> going through the motions of civility. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We know a lot of people.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m certain you do."<br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who are you looking for?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Gerard’s gaze was still friendly. His scent was less so. It molded over in her nose. She’d have to know him better than she did to understand exactly what this shift meant but given how time </span>
  <span>was shrinking</span>
  <span> she decided to trust her best guess. He couldn’t shock them into a brawl, he couldn’t anger </span>
  <span>them into showing their fangs</span>
  <span>.</span>
  
  
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Peter Hale, maybe he’s a relation of yours?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I have quite a few relations.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I</span>
  <span>ndeed. I couldn’t cast a stone off the main road without striking a Hale’s doorstep. In town they told me he’s the brother of the rich widow on the hill.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Then they undoubtedly must have also mentioned he’s a drunk and a scoundrel. I’d rather not beat around the bush, Mr. Argent, I assume you’ve come here to collect some debt he owes you. I’ll pay it, but I haven’t seen him in months. If you’d rather cane the money out of his hide, unfortunately, I won’t be of much help.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Money…,” rasped Gerard, “It’s possible, you are what you’d have me believe you are, Mrs. Hale. It’s possible you don’t know what your brother is. It’s possible that your secrets have nothing to do with the enemy. However, the </span>
  <span>stories</span>
  <span> I’ve extracted from your neighbors do not support </span>
  <span>the illusion of </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> Hale.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you insinuating Mr. Argent?” Catherine demanded. Other chatter was fading around them. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I think Peter Hale knows a charming woman is far more of a weapon to him, than the beast wearing his flesh. Hubris is an alpha’s greatest weakness</span>
  <span>; i</span>
  <span>nstalling himself as the head of this grotesque accumulation of wealth would have been his doom.</span>
  <span>”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> and her sister traded eyes. She said, “If you know all of that, then you know he isn’t here.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve been told his mate was slain in Good River. The only place for him to return to now is home.” He coughed wetly into a kerchief.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve met others like you,” she replied. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve never met anyone like me, my dear.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve never met someone like you capable of illness.” Her niece had whispered to her about what she’d already begun to guess: their beast blood was not a spontaneous, wicked chance, a curse of the zodiac; it flowed through every person living, some more potently than others. Those who hadn’t received the gift to pass on to their children were dead. They were killed by plague, poisoned by bad water, they came too close to the forbidden zones of the world, places marked by illegible, urgent warning markers of a past age. Wherever the hell fire had erupted a thousand years ago, the land became unmade and unnatural; nothing survived there, not even rodents, not even weeds. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>In the desolation of extinction life forces began to fuse.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe shifters had existed before the fire that consumed the world, maybe they survived because of what they were. Only the Tree remembered now. Gerard Argent and his entourage were no different than she was, except they had lived in denial of their patron spirit for so long it was beginning to turn them into something else. It stained Gerard’s handkerchief black when he coughed into it.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m an old man, sickness is inevitable I’m afraid.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It was possible he didn’t know what he was. He could only have learned from whatever enduring written rhetoric that hadn’t been fed to a stove for warmth and broth, if the Argents possessed any written records at all. The story of his clan might exist solely in oral tradition. Under different circumstances </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> Hale would have been his greatest ally in the pursuit of knowledge regarding his kind. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you the direct descendant of your line?” she asked. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Forgive me - I suppose, these are strange times – but why hunt my brother? As I understand, you are as good as blood cousins.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mrs. Hale—,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I never married.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s a shame, even for your age you’re still quite pretty.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Alas.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“And you kept every bastard child you conceived; your money is truly a greater sin than your cursed blood.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Catherine barked a laugh.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr. Argent, I think we’re above veiled insults,” smiled </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His fist slammed into the table. His people and their dinnerware flinched. Background noise evacuated the hall. “Then let’s be frank,” he intoned, “Frankly, I think your brother is hiding in one of these rooms, too much a coward to face his death like a man. I think you’re a wolf bitch yourself; at least one of your mongrel pups, if not all, are the products of inbreeding and I’m planning on sticking a knife in your twat before I leave here.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“And yet, here I sit, unmolested. You’re a terribly civil murderer.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They sat in protracted silence. Not what she'd expected considering how things seemed to be escalating. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Catherine said, “Something’s happened; I thought for certain we wouldn’t still be eating dinner much passed seven. Why’re you boys still sitting around?” The men seated around the table were cagey. Maybe they meant to hide their feelings by forbidding emotions, but their reticence had the opposite effect. Catherine picked up her teaspoon and tossed it at the closest man. It bounced off his shoulder. He didn’t move. She twisted in her chair fully to face her sister with a look of wonder. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Gerard?” </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> asked. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Monsters slaughter unprovoked, we’re men of honor.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh no, no I don’t think that’s it,” Catherine chuckled, “Why did you kill the serving boy? Why wear your pistols and knives to supper? Why not just raid the house, why drive up to the gate at all?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>And then </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> understood. “Did you catch of glimpse It in Good River? It’s not a forest, Gerard, It’s a rip in the Loom’s fabric.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Cease your lies.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You aren’t fighting a boogie man, your enemy isn’t tangible, it’s nature. It’s already all around you. The Wall doesn’t separate us from anything but trees. We survived a burning planet because the spark of life changed its definition of itself.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve been fighting a one-sided war for a thousand years, Crow,” Catherine said, “The only reason you haven’t been crushed outright is because you are just as much entangled in the Wood’s cloth as everyone else; nature doesn’t punish a wolf for killing a deer. But you’re trying to accomplish something worse now, no longer do you pick off beings one-by-one you deem dangerous and inferior, you meditate on genocide. You’d have to run your blade through every single living person and animal to truly achieve what you’ve set out to do; you’d have to burn and salt the world. And nature, the White Yew, did not reimagine her very essence to preserve herself and her creations for a man like you to presume her destruction.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“When you kill us, you will get another glimpse of what you’re actually facing. I assume you haven’t seen it yourself, or else you would’ve known better than to come here or pursue your ridiculous cause any further. Whatever set your clan on this path, whatever injustice was done, happened so long ago I’m certain no one remembers what the transgression was. It’s not worth your lives,” said </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>One of the men stood from the table and walked out the room. The others gawked, but no one stopped him. The front door slammed open and shut. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“A winged demon lived among my family – it lives in me now and all my descendants, the difference between us is I choose to fight it, to keep it from overcoming others.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When he said ‘others’ his breath was silver under his mouth. A chill swept up </span>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> arms. Her dining table was no longer long and wooden, but a stone slab surrounded by stone chairs. She was up, dragging her sister away from the phantasm, shielding </span>
  <span>Catey</span>
  <span> from this image of the Wood that came on so quickly, so strongly, she was incensed, certain one of Gerard’s people had clubbed her over the head. Could it be an image? The grass crunched under her heels; frost was already collecting on their hems. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The Argents had drawn weapons and circled up, their places at this new, strange table abandoned. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“WITCHES!” cried one of them and a trigger clicked without firing. The man trying to shoot was subdued in a rustle of fabric. His gun was kicked away across the frozen ground. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Sweat trickled down her neck despite the cold. Every place in this clearing was dark blue and silver, presided over by the moon. She’d forgotten about the moon; she’d forgotten what day it was. When </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> Hale’s eye caught the glittering corner of the biggest moon she had ever stood beneath, its power lanced through her eye, through her brain, down her spine. She scarcely said her sister’s name before she was crumbling to her knees. The Wolf emerged without her. They used to walk into the open together, but under the influence of such a moon, they were strangers. </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> went careening into the depths of her mind, her vision a shrinking pin hole as she was torn away from it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Catherine had seen this monster only once before. She suspected her sister was always capable of it whenever she desired (such a seat of power was unfathomable to Catherine; why wear clothes? Why eat at a dinner table when this creature was at her call?). The only other time </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> had become this was the night their father had shoved their mother down and she’d banged her head on the table. She would never get up again. Honestly, Catherine never understood why that was what broke the dam of </span>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> full might. Their mother was no better to them than their father was. The beast emerged, and Peter had been screaming something and Catherine had snatched his collar and flung them both out the cabin’s front door. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> stumbled back out, naked and dazed, Catherine reentered long enough to smash all their parents’ liquor bottles and a burning oil lamp. She kept her eyes forward as she worked and never saw what had become of James and Judith Hale. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She’d forgotten how large this shift was. The additional mass applied itself to </span>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> frame in a way that hurt Catherine’s eyes. A glowing red gaze beheld her. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> Hale if you do not control yourself, I will not be attending brunch on Sunday.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>That insufferable old shit Gerard Argent was aghast on the other side of the field. She heard him throwing orders around, but his men were struggling to comprehend this new development and being transported to... to wherever they were currently. A little warning would have been appreciated; she would have gotten her shawl. As always, it seemed Catherine would have to be a voice of reason. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stay where you are!” she shouted. Some of them paused. Some of them trained their pistols on her. She suspected, like the first, they would not be able to fire. It was still unnerving. And rude. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>One the men shrieked. Their stares and their weapons swung around to the thing in the clearing with them. For an instant, she thought she saw a Harvestman looming in the trees, but it was a man; a plain man with a long white beard and blue-black robes that grazed the ground. He held a stave and lantern. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> massive haunches lowered and she sat obediently, and as much as Catherine would have liked to take credit, </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> rarely listened to her in her womanlier form; she doubted the manifestation of Tally’s spiritual force cared much about brunch or who attended it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Catherine leaned on her cane. “Why’ve you brought us here, Spirit?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Gerard Argent spat something at her. Possibly to tell her to shut her peasant mouth. She waved him be silent. He was not.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You are summoned,” replied the Spirit. That shut Argent up. The Spirit’s lantern raised to shine light on the contingent of armed enforcers surrounding their master. When the light hit them, their clothing fell empty to the forest floor and from the billowing collars flew a dozen starlings. The </span>
  <span>tweedling</span>
  <span> birds bandied up into the cloudless night sky in a shadowy column. Gerard Argent stood alone in a circle of their affects. He had emotion now when while seated for dinner he’d been half submerged in his self-loathing and desiring destruction. He looked frail without his protection; he looked his age. Black spittle was crusted on his chin from so much excitement. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve taken your damn time,” Catherine snapped. She hadn’t deigned to hope for intervention on any scale, her mind was still reeling even if her voice was steady. No one came for her and her siblings when the worst of their childhoods was unfolding. No one came for the people she’d seen mistreated for their birth sign and heightened connection to the Forest. No one ever came. In fact, it was anger keeping her so damn stable when Gerard Argent was clearly struggling to keep his breeches clean. She approached the Spirit. “A thousand years of madness, of abuse and backward thinking and you appear because of a maggot like him?” she demanded, “My daughter whimpers in her bed at night about all the dead animals in your woods; Bear, Snake, Coyote, the rest, all dead and their descendants too and the Wood or Murk or whatever you call yourself, is suddenly real because of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Gerard Argent</span>
  </em>
  <span>? Make me a bird too. I wish never look again at the ground. I’ll fly until it kills me.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The Spirit was unmoved. Why would her words move it when every horrible thing It had seen hadn't? Nature was cruel. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You are summoned,” It told her. It turned to </span>
  <span>Thalia’s</span>
  <span> hulking shape at the clearing’s edge and repeated itself. It then turned to the curling, dark path through the trees behind it and walked in, lantern guiding its way. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“A thousand years of murder and rape and </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> are the abomination that got us an audience,” she told Argent, “For once I’m at a loss for words.”  Catherine followed after the Spirit with no expectations of walking back out again; not after the haranguing she planned to deliver to their </span>
  <span>summoner</span>
  <span>. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her people fell behind her, they dropped to their knees, they stopped and turned and walked the other direction. They couldn’t hear her. They couldn’t hear each other. One would cry enchantment and fall silent, sit on the ground and stop talking. Even Jonah. Even the hounds. Allison was alone before long. The animals she’d freed all thundered ahead, faster than she could’ve hoped to keep a pace with. Her horse stopped trotting not long after she’d left the last man behind her. She begged with her horse, tears in her eyes, pulling on his reigns to guide him. She tied a kerchief another the stallion’s eyes if sight was what petrified him. But he wouldn't budge. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Wherever Allison was going, it was by her own mettle.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0031"><h2>31. Do</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He tried to clear his mind, tried to find that meditative space he’d found with Christian a hundred times as they scoured the Ether for signs. Thoughts of Christian invaded any quiet he could muster. Maybe all Fox children were doomed to this kind of sex. It might be the last time he’d ever feel his flesh fused to another’s. He knew impending death wasn’t the only reason they were tangled up, awkwardly humping and groping. There had been more between he and Derek Hale before he’d driven them apart. It was the more that’d scared him from the moment he identified it. He'd used his fleeting anger to justify running. And the schism had been just long enough they’d forgotten their easy pattern of touching that’d arisen in Hale House. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek presumed to mount him because they’d never actually spoken about how sex would materialize between them. He didn’t know how to explain his growing revulsion to being dominated. No one spoke about sex, it was an act, not a speech and he’d never heard a person put words around it in a satisfying way. They wrestled briefly, tumbling in the snow until Stiles had him on his belly. He put a hand down Derek’s back to keep him there and jerked him off through his trousers. It surprised him when Derek leaned into his position. No one ever let Stiles do as he pleased with them.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He got Derek’s pants down around his knees, opened him as Peter had done, though without any of the convenient wetness of a ritual space. He was ravenous by the time Derek was stifling moans and pushing back against three fingers. Derek’s cock dribbled in his palm, threatening to seed. Stiles yanked his hand away and caught Derek by his hair, “Don’t come.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek garbled something affirmative, his hips bucking, begging for breach. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles fitted himself between the thick slopes of Derek’s ass. He paused long enough to see the picture he’d made, nearly come himself and be plagued by a memory of bloody tears in Christian’s unseeing eyes. He fucked into Derek callously at first, trying to dispel the darkness of his life with sensation. He fucked to escape himself until he lost thoughtful words, until he was an animal in the forest, fucking because death was so familiar it was a shadow, fucking to feel a single good and pure thing before plunging into unknowable darkness. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>There wasn’t any form to his thrusts. Peter and Christian fucked each other this way, but when they added Stiles to their complex mesh, they made love like it was a painting. He'd never feel that again; knew better than to ever attempt to recreate it. But he could feel this, and God it was good. Derek arched into him, cheek in the snow, masturbating himself and sobbing for more. He said please, over and over, it was the only word he remembered. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll do what I say?” Stiles panted.</span>
  <span> <br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll come when I say?” Hearing his own voice this way was going to finish him before he could hope to give Derek the instructions he hungered for. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Please, please-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Come for me, Derek, just for me.” With a strangled gasp hot cum spit into the snow. It wasn’t enough. “Do it again.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I - I,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles pulled out, pushed Derek over onto his back, and faceted himself between his thighs. Derek chest heaved when Stiles entered him again, his shirt and jacket unbuttoned and bunched leaving his torso naked to the cold. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to see you come,” Stiles purred, hiking Derek’s legs on his shoulders. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck-,”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek looked at him like he had the night Stiles crawled into his bedroll, like he was just as starved for the sensation of being witnessed. He held </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> gaze in a frighteningly honest way. It was the expression Stiles feared enough to flee from. He couldn’t have seen it until he was ready and despite all he’d done to sabotage this thing between them, he’d quietly become the person he needed to be in order to share his flesh and soul with someone ready to share it too. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It didn’t take very long for Derek to harden again, their pace having gone for urgent to sedate, a kind of sex that existed only between them. Stiles found his meditation in the movement of Derek’s body. Derek came on his stomach, his eyes on </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> eyes, and Stiles followed him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They lay together a while under a wildly large moon. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Christian taught him the nature of Fox’s spirit gradually. Fox was a creature of the underbrush; it knew mazes and foot paths unteachable to the over-</span>
  <span>worlders</span>
  <span>. It was never lost. He didn’t need to know where to go, to go where he was needed. They hiked foreign woodlands north. Derek didn’t pester him about their direction; he might have sensed signals in the brush Stiles was blind to just as </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> compass existed only in the soles of his feet. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He saw Fox occasionally, but Fox preferred not to be seen. It only plagued him, rasped in his ear, laughed under its breath, when he denied it. The nights he was certain it was going to jump out of shadow and tear open his throat he could have slept peacefully if only he’d been able to acknowledge and understand himself. He assumed he would lament his fear of Fox for the rest of his life. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It poked it’s head out of a bramble and disappeared again. </span>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The part of the Wall they finally reached was obscure and broken enough to step over. Derek’s shock was unconcealed when he saw where Fox had brought them. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I wonder sometimes if it really does stretch to the end of the land,” he muttered, crossing over.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It might. But it’s a just a pile of stones.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“When did you know?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <span>dunno</span>
  <span>,” Stiles shrugged, “People talk about the air being poison, how could a wall stop that? It might’ve kept the animals away, but a massive plate of food being dropped over the side every year probably drew them in. Maybe every few years, it attracted a strange one. It'd come over the Wall looking to eat and </span>
  <span>people’d</span>
  <span> get in the way. The rest is just lies and </span>
  <span>wivestales</span>
  <span>.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Sometimes.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles affixed him with a look as they continued on.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Sometimes the animals went looking for people.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You socialized with them?” Derek gave him that look Derek often gave. Stiles liked it best of the looks he often elicited. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They’d come back with blood on their mouths or on their claws and it always smelled the same. Like all the blood came from the same place, like they were killing the same person over and over.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What’d smell like?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“A coop.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe the attacks weren’t random.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll ask next time we have tea.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles stopped walking, “Derek Hale. Was that a joke?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut up.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, I feel a little faint.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stiles.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It flirts, it jokes, but does it juggle?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles shoved him. As Cora would have. It seemed to do him some good. He backed Stiles against a tree with a growl and sniffed his neck. Derek, pulled back the collar of his coat and shirt to reveal the tattoos latticed under them. Eagle was on his chest, its wings spread from shoulder to shoulder, its tail feathers twined into a thorny chaparral. Derek ran a finger over it and then under </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> chin. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I had a dream last night,” Stiles said, “there were three pools of water.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“They used to show me nothing but death and destruction. Last night they were empty.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Does that mean something?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What was in them might have come to pass.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t know?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t have written instructions for prophetic dreams, no.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe it was subverted.” Derek Hale needed hope. Stiles decided he needed some too and dismissed the dreams from his mind. He kissed Derek. Stiles had never kissed anyone. It felt more intimate then sex somehow. It was a bad kiss seeing as neither of them expected it. Derek pulled away to cup his face with both hands and kiss him properly. The sparkling feeling went from his lips straight to his groin. Their sliding tongues had him hard before he had a chance discourage it his cock from making hasty decisions. Derek glanced down when he felt it on his leg. His eyes returned horribly knavish. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We should carry on,” Stiles tried. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I doubt you’ll be able to walk.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Hardly able to contain yourself today.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek knelt in front of him and gave him another sort of kiss. </span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0032"><h2>32. Bone Broke</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The animals were there in the trees. They never came close enough to see their colors. Stiles wondered what someone might have to do that would bring them baring down. Their presence felt more like an escort than merely curious creatures coming to see who passed through their Wood. There were Harvestman amongst them. Every few hours he would look up and the trees would seem as though they were laggardly taking steps in the distance only for him to realize they were not trees, but legs.  </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He and Derek shed their coats as they walked. The air was turning moist, warmer, the further in they trod. Spring grass began poking through the carpet of old leaves and tender new moss clung to the trunks. Misty tendrils draped the thickets. Rain fell in crystaline globs even though the sun was peering through the canopy. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>In school they said there was no light in the heart of the Forest. Darkness lived and stretched from the center of it to cover the rest of the world. But the light here was delicate, fluttering white and nubile green. Dew dripped from the high leaves like falling gems. Derek looked more in awe of their surroundings than Stiles, even though he must have seen some of it before. Maybe it was a sight you could never become familiar with. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The trees bowed into a thatched tunnel, their branches all weaving together creating a soft, cool shady place the walk. Their steps no longer felt like their own. Stiles became aware suddenly, his tattoos throbbing like they had after they’d first been inked, that he and Derek were being led somewhere specific. The end the tunnel was glaring sunlight, obscuring whatever lay beyond. Passing through it was like dying, he thought. His whole life he’d feared dying would be more terrifying than painful; that he’d be forced to sleep, plunged into plain, silent, suffocating darkness, that no one would be there with him. Perhaps death wasn’t sleep; maybe it was waking up. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They emerged into a glade swimming in sunlight. The surrounding woods kept a respectful distance from the fell giant at the bottom of the knoll. A dead tree, larger than most, was decaying in the grass and from the ragged tear where trunk had crumbled from stump grew a sapling. It wore a gauzy crown of leaves, trembling in the breeze. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Where are we?” Stiles asked. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I never came this deep. It doesn’t let anyone near.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Derek pointed at the child tree. It was the source. They stood on a hill, but there were hills all around, the tree’s cradle was at the bottom of a crater. It had long grown over, filled in with wildflowers and prairie grass, the jagged edges of impact smoothed over. Something strange and impossible had happened here. Stiles realized how little he understood about the nature of nature; the thing which animated he and all things in different ways was a force beyond comprehension, beyond logic. The tree looked young, but he could feel the charged atmosphere of the glade and knew it was very, very old compared to a human lifespan. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>People were gathered around it. They were difficult to see at first, like smears coming off the top of a camp fire. Air wrinkled their shapes until seemingly pulling taut and suddenly they were solid. The only person Stiles recognized was an old man; the man with crooked teeth, the vile destroyer in </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> nightmares. Stiles took Derek's hand and walked in front of him as they approached. He’d have liked a knife or pistol, had he known what they were walking into. He still wasn’t quite sure what this was, but he’d never felt so certain of his ability to kill a man with nothing but his hands, especially this man, especially if he so much as gave Derek a sideways look. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He remembered the dream taste of Derek’s blood of his mouth. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He and Derek joined the only remaining gap in the circle and as they did something crunched under his boot. Stiles lifted his foot. Bones, half swallowed by grass... human bones. They’d been here long enough to bleach in the sun and sink into the ground. They were everywhere. A ring of white fragments surrounding the old tree’s corpse and the young tree’s bassinet. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>To their right was a girl in leather plate, dark hair in a messy knot, sweat and dirt crusted on her edges. She was heavily armed; he assumed that for every piece of weaponry he could see there were two more pieces secretly concealed on her. She was electrically alert. She studied he and Derek briefly, and then the others. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>To the left was the crooked tooth man, a woman with a cane and a beast covered in black fur. Derek’s hand was sweating in his. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span>,” he sputtered. Stiles saw the beast’s red eyes under its heavy brow bone, the same red he’d thought he’d seen at that first dinner. She looked pained, as if this form ached. Her muscular shoulders were bent, her back hunched. She sat behind the woman with the cane, drooling, ears flicking a halo of gnats. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“And Catherine,” Derek managed nervously, “my aunt.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“ALLISON!” shrieked the old man upon recognizing her through the spring haze, “KILL THEM ALLISON, KILL THEM NOW!” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles spun them around, putting himself between she and Derek. Her bow was in her hand so quickly, he hadn't seen her move. It took a few thudding heartbeats to realize she hadn’t nocked an arrow, merely responded to an order and stopped herself from doing more. Her eyes locked with </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span>. She saw his arms, his chest, his neck, and knew the significance of the marks, the recognition tensed her brow, but still she didn't move. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>She’s waiting for you to attack</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he realized. She was one of them, one of the Argents, the old man’s knowing her name, commanding her, confirmed it. He and Christian had discovered their credo in the reading: Hunt those who hunt us. The old man had no honor; he was the catalyst of the Wood’s warnings, but she stayed her hand despite his screaming at her to act. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>A life time being condemned to silence made </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> brain slow to realize that speaking now would save them, it would save them all. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“WAIT!” he cried, hands up, “DON’T SHOOT!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“DON’T LET THEM PUT A SPELL ON YOU!” hollered the old man. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“SAY ANOTHER WORD AND I’LL PUNCH YOUR LIGHTS OUT!” the woman with the cane bellowed back. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“NO!” shouted Stiles, to all of them, eyes darting frantically, “NO ONE MOVE! If we start fighting, they’ll just kill us all!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What’re you talking about?” Allison demanded. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Sweat stung in his eyes, “The bones,” he gestured wildly at their feet. "Did you really come here to kill us, or was it something else?"</span>
  <span> <br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>She glanced at the old man who was still shouting unintelligibly from across the field. “I came to treat... with the master of the woods.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s why we’re all here! If we fight, if we fail, we’ll be more bones on the pile! We aren’t fighting the Wood, we’re fighting ourselves!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Wolf, fox and crow, the only creatures left able to protect the rest of the herd, and they were consumed with destroying each other. The killing wasn’t caused by their animal natures; it was caused by their human ones, the same human nature that nearly destroyed the world and all the life on it. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles said, “The zodiac exists because we </span>
  <em>
    <span>needed</span>
  </em>
  <span> it. We were turning into something determined to divorce itself from natural consideration. We are the monsters; we did this ourselves – and Life has been trying to save us from ourselves. How many councils like this have failed? How many are left before the Wood overruns the world and begins again?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“COVER YOUR EARS ALLISON!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t see how six of us choosing not to kill each other solves anything,” Allison replied, ignoring the old man. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe that’s how it works,” Derek offered, “Small groups of enemies choosing to talk; if we can change our attitudes, maybe others can too. There’re thousands of bones here, but who’s to say there shouldn’t be more? How many have succeeded? How does their success affect the rest of us?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Less than fifty years ago it was illegal for people like me to wear clothing,” Stiles said, “Now I can. Progress is there... we’re just too close to see it.” He’d gotten it wrong. His visions weren’t the result of the Argents running amuck, they would be the result if their intervention failed; as long as they didn't, the pools in his dreams might remain empty. </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> eyes swung to the old man. “It’s him, he’s why we’re here.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“If you kill him, I’ll kill you,” Allison warned. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We aren’t supposed to kill him,” said Stiles, “we’re supposed to talk to him.” Who knew better than Stiles the effects of violence? Of cruelty? They fed on each other, they alienated, they marginalized, they created a void of silence in which there could be no dialogue if left unchecked. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles addressed the old man, with the only question he could think of, one he’d wanted to ask the boys in his village, David </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span>, Dr. Hadley, all of them who hated him, “Why?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“DO NOT SPEAK TO ME WITCH!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Why am I witch, why are any of us witches?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“SHUT YOUR MOUTH!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Why won’t you speak to me?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“KILL HIM ALLISON!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you want me dead?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“YOU’RE AN ABOMINATION!”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>WHY</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> voice cut sharply across the open air, so deafeningly the chittering insects fell silent. The whole field took on a quality of unsound, save for the whisper of the circle’s breathing. The old man stood shocked to silence himself, face slack as he reeled. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Answer him, Gerard,” Allison ordered, her soft voice like a slow blade. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Gerard Argent’s mad eyes flitted to those facing him. Even </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> in her beast form watched him with large glowing gaze. He was trapped in her stare. She must have been one of the most terrifying things he’d ever beheld; and yet she did not lunge at him, she did not show her maw of long teeth or growl or menace. She only waited for him to make his reply. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You.... You are ungodly,” he mustered. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?” Catherine asked, “Why is my sister ungodly? She is a mother. She’s a charitable woman unable to deny kindness to any stranger whom approaches her. She is a pillar of goodness in her community, beloved of her neighbors, respected by her peers. She is successful in business and friendship. Why, Mr. Argent, is she ungodly?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s a monster, promiscuous–,” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That is not an answer,” tutted Catherine, “Why do you say these things?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Allison </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> something!” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Allison returned he bow to her back. “I don’t have an answer either, Gerard. That’s why I’m here. I saw an evil creature hide children from my men in Good River, because it feared we would hurt them, because it did not distinguish us from the other foul people committing violence and rape against the civilians. I don’t know why I think a creature capable of that kind of compassion is evil. And if it’s capable of that, is it unreasonable to think it’s capable of love? A purely evil thing can’t love.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to be taught to ask why,” said Stiles, “If you can’t come up with answer that justifies more pain, even if it’s only to yourself, you’ll never stop; you’ll perpetuate this forever, you’ll hurt people you never meet.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“So, what is it you old fool?” asked Catherine, “where’s all this come from? Your daddy hit you? Maybe your mother? The other boys at school? No one’s born this way, someone did it to you, so out with it.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe a different sort of old man would have wept. Something in Catherine’s words stabbed him, but he didn’t flinch or go glassy eyed. He stared at Allison, reticent, betrayed. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mom told me about kind Aunt Tilda,” Allison guessed, “she said the only time she ever saw you so upset was when she died. The other Aunts were all like Kate, but Tilda wasn’t like that.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened to her?” asked Stiles. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Our compound was raided. Bandits – but one of them was a werewolf. She knew how to wield a sword, but said she’d never do it in violence. Gerard found her body. No one really knows what happened.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“That beast defiled her,” Gerard rumbled. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No one actually knows if it was him.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Men aren’t capable of such acts.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It hurt Stiles to hear it. It didn’t sound like a staunch denial, more like a frightened one, a refusal to believe an ordinary person could do something so foul. Gerard's monster wasn’t a monster at all, it was just a person. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t understand it either,” said Stiles. Gerard looked at him fully for the first time, mouth taut. “How terrible ordinary people are. Most of them aren’t that way all the time, but when they are I just can’t believe it. I do it too. I hurt people; sometimes I never realize I have. Sometimes I don’t feel guilty.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think anything really mends,” Allison said, “it just hurts.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“No one deserved Tilda’s affection,” Gerard said slowly. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It can feel wrong to feel loved when you’ve never had it before,” replied Derek. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The old man nodded. “Your father was a sweet boy, Allison. Sweet and gentle, like her – I had to do what I did, I had to make him strong–,” he stopped himself, his flood of words, and searched the ground. What he said rang like thoughts that’d loomed for a long time and suddenly sounded bizarre in the open. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Christopher doesn’t resent you,” said Allison, “neither do I. I – I think that’s your answer.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Still staring at the grass, he nodded again. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Given the nature of their family’s duty, Stiles imagined fear was not an acceptable feeling. Looking at them both he decided most feelings were unacceptable. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I think we have to stop, grandpa,” Allison said gingerly. She swiped a tear from her eye. He nodded, distantly. Gerard had that vacant look of reckoning; Allison embraced him. He returned it after moment. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The scene around them changed between breaths; the pleasant spring temperature dropping suddenly. Flurries hung in the air. Stiles wrapped his arms around himself instantly when the frozen wind hit him. His head whorled at the abrupt displacement, at the last warm breath he'd taken in the glade exiting him as a steam.   </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Commander,” stammered a young soldier, snapping to attention, “Miss Argent – we weren’t expecting – the snow, there was a cyclone and... you’re here, please come inside. I, I apologize, please, this way.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles wheeled around; the square, the fountain, black banners flying a silver lily. He recognized the buildings, the cobbled streets, everything but the strange faces still wandering despite the late hour. It was his town, but no longer full of his neighbors. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re in Last Rest,” he murmured, hackles standing on end.  He kicked the ground and black dust rubbed off on his boot. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Coal,” Derek whispered back. They joined hands, moving to stand more closely, neither able to tell what weirdness had befallen this place. </span>
  <span>It was like stepping into a negative mirror glass of his home, what had been white was black, even the snow. Tiny ash flakes floated with the snowfall. <br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This way,” again prompted the soldier. Catherine and </span>
  <span>Thalia</span>
  <span> were gone. The magic that’d traveled them here had not brought Derek’s mother and aunt. There was still something left to do, Stiles thought, perhaps a nine-foot wolfwoman was not integral to whatever it was. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Trust it,” Stiles said under his breath. He said it for himself as much as Derek. They’d come this far, seemingly by succeeding their first trial. They couldn’t fail now. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The soldier didn’t know what they were, clearly if they were with his master, they could only be allies. His arm was still outstretched toward the churchyard’s gate; Gerard and Allison were already passing through it. He and Derek followed, nodding and trying not to act suspiciously. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The church had been converted into some kind of barracks. The pews, pulpit and relics were removed to make way for bunks, racks and artillery. A chicken scuttled by their feet, giving Stiles a jolt. It smelled like barn. Men were washing themselves with rags and a bucket, naked but for their boots, squatting on milking stools in one of the corners. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He was dizzy. It was too fast. Everywhere he looked nothing was what he remembered. Had the main gates been open? Had he seen them through the dark? Derek was suddenly his only anchor in this </span>
  <span>otherly</span>
  <span> place. There were more people filling this room than he’d ever seen at a service and every one of them was alien. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They entered David’s private office at the back of the main hall. The Reverend was nowhere in the room. A woman with golden hair was hunched over his desk, a few important people around her, all of them in full military dress, but he didn’t recognize the uniforms. Maybe they were vaguely similar to the glimpses of black armor he’d seen on the rooftop agents in Good River. They had a map spread between them and several others still rolled up or cast to the floor. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Gerard,” remarked the blonde woman. She seemed like the kind of person who rarely felt shock. Her expression remained neutral, haggard around the edges at his manifestation here when surely, he should have been anywhere else. The other officers bowed and stepped aside, except for one who stood by their mistress, his face gouged by long claw scars. “And Allison,” she added, upon closer inspection, “I wasn’t expecting you.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t seem happy to see us, Aunt Kate,” noted Allison. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Kate’s eyes drifted, they hooked briefly on Derek, before returning, “We </span>
  <em>
    <span>are </span>
  </em>
  <span>at war, Ally.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Not anymore,” Gerard said staunchly. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Dear God. One of the men in the cluster surrounding them was Able Hubbard. Stiles only noticed him when he felt the Mayor’s bug-eyed stare on him. The mayor was so gaunt, he was unrecognizable. </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> blood started to cool, it started to turn to slush as they stared at each other. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Hubbard dabbed the streak of sweat off his lip and blurted, “Mistress-,” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Christ Able</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Kate spat, silencing him, and to Gerard, “What the hell are you talking about?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“The war is over," Gerard answered, "We’ve won.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles took his eyes off Hubbard long enough to squint at Gerard. Derek’s palm was starting to sweat. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ve... won?” Her incredulity was sharp.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“The Tree is destroyed. Mr. Hale gave it up.” They hadn’t properly introduced themselves, but Stiles supposed guessing Derek’s identity wasn’t quite a leap for someone like Argent. “I found him cowering in a cellar at Hale House.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>That’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>Peter Hale?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It is.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Did he misplace his shackles?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We reached an understanding; the lives of his family for an escort into the Murk.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh-huh,” she intoned. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you happy to see us now?” Allison chuckled. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Kate smiled a poisonous smile, “No, Ally.” She gestured to a man behind them. The door they’d come through clicked shut, the locked engaging with a </span>
  <span>thunk</span>
  <span>. When Stiles looked over his shoulder, he found the man stationed in front of it, holding a bayonet. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>This did nothing to perturb Gerard. “Care to explain, Katherine?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Me?” she puffed, and elbowed the scarred man, “Explain </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span>self?” She waved away another of her men and he disappeared through the rear door. “You ended the war? You killed the Tree? Are you finally going senile?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Patiently, Gerard’s focus went to the scarred man, “Christopher?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Who’s that boy?” Christopher asked, chin indicating Stiles. “If that’s Peter Hale, who’s the boy?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve read the intelligence, Christopher, you’re aware Peter Hale has a mate; a male conjurer.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Allison had gone ghostly. Her features remained schooled, despite her coloring; Stiles did the same. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The soldier who’d left the room, returned with another man and between them snarling, foaming, snapping its jaws was brown brindle wolf secured by two pole leads connected to a collar. This wolf was larger than other wolves. Stiles sucked in a shaky breath. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“We received a homing bird,” Christopher said with measure, “detailing the battle for Good River. My wife was witnessed abducting the mate of Peter Hale. Her body was reported as mauled, missing innards and nearly torn in half.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It also said our men recovered the conjurer’s corpse not far from where they found Victoria. So,” mused Kate, “Who the </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck </span>
  </em>
  <span>is that?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Mischief!” cried Hubbard.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Good Lord,” Kate griped. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“He is the Fox witch who brought the Harvest Reaper’s upon us! He will curse us! And </span>
  <em>
    <span>that man with him is </span>
  </em>
  <span>not</span>
  <em>
    <span> Peter Hale!</span>
  </em>
  <span>"</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Christopher insisted we keep him,” remarked Kate, meaning the skeletal remains of the mayor, “if I’d thrown him in the mine with the others Chris swore we’d have a revolt on our hands.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Kate,” Christopher warned. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What did you think I was building to you animate boil?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Kate</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She groaned. “What’re the rest of you waiting for? An invitation?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Men lunged on everyone but Gerard, tore Stiles and Derek apart, clapped Allison in a choke hold and divested her of her weapons. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t! Don’t fight!” Stiles garbled, as his man with a large belly and rank stink locked an arm around his neck and pressed a knife under his ribs. Derek was frighteningly tense, frighteningly still, but he obeyed. There might have been a world in which he could rip every man in here to shreds before they drew weapons. There might have been. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not all that surprised they got Allison,” Kate sighed, petting a lock of her niece's hair that’d coming undone in the brief struggle. “You don’t have the instinct, sweetheart. But shit on a dick, Pop. How’d a twerp like him,” her hand flapped in </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> direction, “bewitch Gerard Argent? I once saw you cut down charging alpha all on your own with nothing but that shitty old broadsword.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You wouldn’t accept the truth,” Gerard said coolly.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You fuck him? Catch the crazy from his cunt like </span>
  <span>ol</span>
  <span>’ </span>
  <span>Whittemore</span>
  <span>?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Do not test my patience, Katherine. I made you. I will unmake you.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Dammit you did,” she walked to Stiles. Her face bent forward to study him, so close he thought she might bite him. Her perfume was eye-burningly sweet. “You thought you could march my own father in here as your thrall and end the war? You’ve got balls.” She fondled him through his pants, squeezing his sex just hard enough to make him understand she could crush it to pulp. Stiles couldn’t make himself breathe, couldn’t make himself think. This can’t be it, not this. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His captor’s cocked pressed into his ass, throbbing and hard and he just had to keep from screaming, just don’t scream, don’t move, don’t do anything and just don’t fucking scream. But it wasn’t him she was trying to get a rise out of. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You two pass him around?” she asked Derek, “You let Ally take him for a ride?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Kate!</span>
  </em>
  <span>" Barked Christopher. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“C’mon, Chris, she’s a fucking traitor. She stopped being your daughter the second let those specimens loose in the Good River.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I will deal with her,” Christopher seethed, “Leave her out of your game.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re no fun.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I tried to give you an easy excuse to lay down your arms,” said Gerard, “You didn’t have to believe it, you only had to accept it and this could have been resolved without embarrassment or hurt pride. Now I’m ordering you release my granddaughter and these young men, before I consider drastic punishment for your insubordination.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You think you have authority here? You’re clearly under spell work.” Kate laughed, “These are my men, this is my town, I’m the fucking King. ”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Papa, it’s not a spell,” Allison wheezed.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> barely heard her. The man holding him teased the tip of his knife discretely just below his belly button. The blade prodded so he could feel the sharpness without breaking the skin. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>What the Tree intended had been so clear in the field. Now he grasped at nothing, no reason for their being here but to receive torment. Gerard was the fulcrum, the person he’d been absolutely certain this war hung on, it was him they needed to convince, so why? What had he gotten wrong?</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s your name handsome?” Kate asked, examining Derek like she had Stiles. “Cat got your tongue? I heard you were stubborn. I bet you're Derek. The wolf-bitch's only son. And you’ve got the blue eye curse like sweet Uncle Peter. How’d you get mixed up in this? Do you even know? Do you know anything about dark conjurers like your little plaything over there? Witches don’t need rituals to enslave a mind if your will is weak enough. He’d only have to breathe in your direction, look directly into your eyes. You aren’t a virgin, are you?” A flexor in his cheek bounced. “Oh no, sweetie, don’t tell me you were. Well you’re useless, then. I wouldn’t trust any memories you think you have; I guarantee they aren’t real.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She was only taunting him, he had to know it. Stiles wanted to scream at her, he wanted to open a portal to the deepest, darkest corner of the Wood and shove her through. The Great White Yew couldn’t expect him to convince a person like Kate Argent that she was motivated by nothing more than a thousand years of abuse. She wasn’t like Gerard; he could smell it despite her sickening cologne. Some part of him had once questioned their ways, had felt undeserving of the love he craved; Kate was the opposite.</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>There wasn’t a graveyard of unburied bones here to warn them against violence. Perhaps they were meant to fight, perhaps they were meant to die to suit some larger purpose, but he couldn’t accept that any more than he could accept this idea that Kate Argent could be turned with reason and love. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His brain refused him, it locked up. Derek’s desperate eyes were on him even as Kate prattled on, trying to break him for her pleasure. In this last moment, he only wanted to look at Stiles and Stiles understood him better than he ever had. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It sprang on him, cut through his twisting anxiety and his roaring maelstrom of thoughts ceased. He and Derek wanted only to be with each other if death had come around. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>This moment was no different for Allison. She was staring with watery eyes at her father and he was staring back. </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll really kill your own family?” Stiles snapped, cutting off Kate’s drivel. She turned to him like a serpent. “Allison’s your niece and you’re going to kill her for trying to end centuries of fighting? There’s no spell I could put her under that’d turn her against her own family. Apparently, only malice can do that.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“My, my. Aren’t full of piss and vinegar?”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Gerard could have charged in here with a fully armed contingent to unseat you, he could’ve cut you down and inserted himself. But he came to talk instead. He must’ve known you might react this way and he still tried to give you an easy way out. You going to kill him too? Who’s next? Anyone else you're sick of? This isn't about honor or protecting people, it's about control - you don't love anything but your own pleasure.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Honey, I don't need a war to get what I want, but it's damn convenient.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>From somewhere in the church, possibly as deep as the cellar, an earsplitting scream shredded the air. It was more than a sound; it was shrieking pain as tangible as fog; it stunted </span>
  <span>Stiles’s</span>
  <span> breathing. He swore he could nearly see the ripple it left in the air. Everyone in the room curled over. The man holding Stiles dropped him to the floor so he could clap both hands over his ears. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>When Stiles could open his eyes again, the scream having faded yet still echoing in his mind, he saw a grizzly sight. Kate had been slammed back onto the desk, a dagger protruding from her chest. Blood burbled passed her lips. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Christopher stood over her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Release them."<br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>The men hesitated until Christopher glared at them and they backed away. Kate was not yet dead, but in the throes. Stiles couldn’t imagine what Christopher knew, what he’d seen that they hadn’t, what she might be capable of once talking bored her. When he looked at his sister, it was as though he were looking at her tombstone, as though she’d been resting under it a very long time. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“What have you done?!” wailed Hubbard. The Argents ignored him. As Allison embraced her father, Stiles scraped himself up and shoved the Mayor into the wall. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Where’s my father?” he growled. His growl had gotten as deep as the Hales’ without his knowing. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I - </span>
  <span>I</span>
  <span> don’t know, the mines, I don’t know!” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stiles stormed out of the church with Derek following closely. When he pushed passed the massive doors a crowd was assembled on the other side. Hundreds of faces. Peppered among them were ghostly eyes he knew, finally, a sign of familiarity. A gathering this size would have had him shitting eight months ago, especially if he stood opposite them as he did now. He stepped up and shouted, “WHERE IS JOHN STILINSKI?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The people who knew Stiles gawked; those that didn’t muttered to each other, they peered around. Slowly, like a sooty gray sea, they began to part and just above the sound of shuffling feet, he heard squeaky wheels reckoning with the slushy ground. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Stiles?” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He threw himself at his father, nearly toppling his chair. He smelled nothing like Stiles remembered. He was thin, frail, he lovely wicker chair coming apart from hardship. John held him so tightly he thought his bones might break; he whimpered that he’d thought Stiles was dead, that he’d wanted to die, that they took Melissa somewhere. His old gruff face was even more creased, his hair a shock of white when he wasn’t nearly old enough to be so gray. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s ok,” Stiles told him. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>John struck out and pulled Derek down into their embrace. Tears streaked John’s face and wet his beard. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I gave up,” he sobbed, “I was going to tip myself down the shaft, I’m sorry, Stiles, I’m so sorry.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s ok, it’s ok.” </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Claudia told me not to, I dreamed her and she said John you stay away from there; but I was going to anyway.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, Dad. It’s ok.” </span>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0033"><h2>33. In The Cold, Cold Night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>No one could tell them what happened to Melissa McCall. Stiles asked at every house that didn’t slam their door in his face. He sat with Danny and his sister all evening when he got to their house. They were all that remained of their family. Stiles never thought he’d see the inside of their cabin; he never dreamed he’d drink coffee in their siting room. The last Danny had heard, a group of women were taken to the church and not seen again. He didn’t know if Melissa had been with them.  </p><p>He searched the woods around Last Rest for weeks with Derek’s help, but there was nothing to find. She and scores of others had gone into the Argents’ machine and never reappeared. They planted a gravestone for her beside Scott’s when the weather turned fair.  </p><p> </p><p>Stiles and Derek released Kate Argent’s wolf in the Wood.</p><p>Derek lifted the cage door and without a look back, without any hesitation, the wolf tore into the dense green. The forest burst into fullness unseasonably early that year and it swallowed him up before Stiles could capture a decent memory of his going.  </p><p>Tears rained on Derek’s shirtfront.  </p><p>“I’m hopeful,” Stiles told him and took his hand. They decided to take the long way back for supper.  </p><p>“Do you think he’ll–,” Derek cleared his throat when it tied up. </p><p>“He'll be alright.” Happiness might've been too much to wish for, for Peter. He'd be free of other people, though, even Thalia.  Stiles kept that thought to himself. Peter always seemed weary, under his mask, he was tired. He might not be happy, but that creature that'd flown into the thicket was no longer weighted by exhaustion, it wouldn't even know enough to miss them.  </p><p>“When I wrote Thalia, I couldn’t say it right.”  </p><p>“We’ll tell them when they get here. I don’t think anyone knew Peter better than her. Maybe she already knew it might come to this one day.” </p><p>Derek nodded. Maybe they all knew. Before meeting Christian, Stiles imagined he may have been far closer to the wild than anyone was ready to admit. The only time he seemed comfortable wearing his skin was when he was drunk and forgot it was there.  </p><p>“I’m tired,” Derek murmured. </p><p>“We’re almost home.” He wrapped an arm around Derek’s waist and Derek leaned on him. </p><p>The rest of the family would arrive before long. Thalia would know how to properly lay Peter's memory to rest and Christian's. In the letter they'd received back, she said when she woke up in her bed she and Catherine immediately rode out to the hunting lodge the rest of the pack had escaped to. The horses left in the stable took an instant dislike to her, but she'd been too weak to shift again so soon after the perigee. Some of the people she'd taken in were gone, having fled for good into hiding. The others, her daughters and niece, Erica and Boyd, Isaac, a few loyal servants refused to go without knowing her fate. She said her niece met them a mile out, with two dead wild turkeys in each hand when a premonition overtook her some time in the night. Thalia had nearly swallowed one raw and unplucked when she realized how famished the alpha morph left her.</p><p>She also told them she was bringing every resource she had, money, livestock, grain, everything from her stores and had posted letters to her colleagues for aid. Apparently her kindness bought her far more favors than she admitted to. She seem intent on fixing the whole town and everyone in it; he imagined she'd prepared for such a massive undertaking most of her life without knowing if the opportunity would present itself.</p><p>Thinking of it made him tired too. Night was rushing in with the wind, bending and blanketing the new long grass.</p><p>For a moment, when Stiles glanced over his shoulder, he thought he saw a white-haired man disappearing over the Wall.  </p><p>He held Derek tightly; maybe a nap before dinner and then they could start again.  </p><p> </p><hr/><p>End</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>